


the thunder rumbles

by StormySkiesAhead



Series: fur and feathers universe [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Numb3rs (TV)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Alien Character(s), Alien Politics, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because I can, Creature Harry Potter, Creature Hermione Granger, Creature Ron Weasley, F/F, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Jewish Harry Potter, M/M, Multiple Crossovers, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Worldbuilding, but that's later, demigoddess hermione granger, dragons are aliens, haha i do know but am I telling y'all that?, haha ian edgerton is in here SURPRISE BITCH, holy shit the trio's gonna be so fucking op in this tho, i think, i would say crack taken seriously but it's really not, including hermione fight me, it's like half of the later characters tbh, minor numb3rs crossover i guess, no, ok Listen but this might be kind of ok, so maybe some x files later for shits and giggles, tbh it's part of my whole theory that some fbi shows take place in the same universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2019-08-28 22:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 89,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormySkiesAhead/pseuds/StormySkiesAhead
Summary: There is a feeling of power about her, and around the other two, like the scent of rain on the wind.Around the Granger girl, it is like a tidal wave, a push of energy and strength that will not be matched once she learns to control it.The Weasley boy is much the same, but instead like fire- like a wildfire, untamed, a force of nature.And around the Potter girl?The Potter girl is lightning and wind and terror, the power of a hurricane wrapped up into a child no more than twelve, almost thirteen years of age.-Ariela Potter snaps awake with a feeling of dread and the smell of rot in her nose. Her skin prickles like a warning, like lightning beneath her skin, as she paces in her hotel room, warily eyeing the form of her cousin, who snores on.Something isn't right- or rather, something won’t be.-(or: i wanted to have this crossover, and, well, I wrote it, there's nothing inherently awful about it, so y'all can't stop me)





	1. plasma

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fate and Choice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7378531) by [AlexTheReaper (daviesroyal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daviesroyal/pseuds/AlexTheReaper). 



> there is going to be... a LOT of t'karian lore shoved into this fic I'm sorry in advance
> 
> i actually enjoyed writing this and I KNOW I should be working on my other two fics but I cannot describe the pure joy I have when describing what the hell is going on in this particular one.
> 
> and for those of you who may remember snippets of Search And Banter from When Twitter Saved Bucky Barnes, cass and ian are featured heavily in here, later on.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is going to be... a LOT of t'karian lore shoved into this fic I'm sorry in advance
> 
> i actually enjoyed writing this and I KNOW I should be working on my other two fics but I cannot describe the pure joy I have when describing what the hell is going on in this particular one.
> 
> and for those of you who may remember snippets of Search And Banter from When Twitter Saved Bucky Barnes, cass and ian are featured heavily in here, later on.

Ariela Potter snaps awake with a feeling of dread and the smell of rot in her nose. Her skin prickles like a warning, like lightning beneath her skin, as she paces in her hotel room, warily eyeing the form of her cousin, who snores on.

Something isn't right- or rather, something won’t be.

She knows that much- while Dudley is a complete dunce, he wouldn't ignore something right in front of his face, and he definitely would start complaining if he smelled something rotting.

So it's definitely her magic trying to warn her of something. Ari shivers, and adjusts a bracelet from where it lays, blue against what should be tawny-gold if she’d been in the sun more than once in the month- everything’s felt more  _ awake _ since they landed in the States, like there's something here that shouldn't be (though Ari really isn't surprised- she knows how many peoples were driven from the places she has seen. She’s spoken to enough ghosts to get an idea of their names, at least).

She tries not to think too much about the fact that the thing that doesn't fit is likely her.

Ari tries to fall asleep again, tries to squish the feeling of unease down until there’s nothing left.

She passes out again at three in the morning.

-

When she wakes, apparently over twenty hours later, the Dursleys are gone.

This isn't that much of a surprise- frankly, they've abandoned her before, but with little success (Ari really,  _ really  _ needs to rethink continuing to go back there). At the very least, her passport is still where she’s hid it, and the map of D.C. She can probably find the embassy if she asks around a bit. Frankly, the most surprising part is that they drugged her.

She retrieves her wand from where she’s stashed it, along with the rest of her belongings in one of those remarkably easy to break drawstring bags, which her Aunt hadn't noticed her sneaking off with.

She sneaks out of the hotel with everything she can carry (though she highly doubts that she’ll be out in the open for long before she can get to the embassy), and asks for directions as often as she can.

She’s less than half a mile away from the embassy itself when someone yanks hard on her arm and shoves a cloth into her mouth and over her nose. She stops breathing automatically, and struggles to get free for at least a full minute, but her body has less fight in it than she’d hope.

She passes out. Again.

-

The smell of rot is back, but now Ari knows the source. One of the three little ones that had been in the room with her in the first place had been killed- likely a show of strength from the man holding them- and her body had been tossed to the rats within the hour. Ari shakes, pressing her back into the side of the single trustworthy adult in the room, a young man who’d been taken for his ties to the American muggle government.

To be completely honest, Ari isn't too surprised that the man who’d shoved the five (now four) of them into the dank basement she’s in has a manifesto of some sort, and she’s also unsurprised that they're to be hostages.

Spencer freezes next to her and starts mumbling gibberish (likely, it's actually something important that he’s saying, trying to save her life, how kind of him) when the man clamps a hand around Ari’s neck, but she’s too tired to care about anything in particular at this point.

Something is screaming, something Not-Her that makes a desperate attempt to do  _ something _ and save itself, and Ari can see it move from her own body to her captor’s.

Well. Fuck that.

-

There is a place in-between, where she waits.

There are whispers- voices calling her to come home, of Leah with a voice not distorted from fear (though how she would know what the little girl sounded like in joy when she has only heard the child in her final moments, trapped in the throes of death, confused her), of something that sounds like her mother.

Of something that sounds like home.

And there is a woman with a ghostly pale face and a crown that spreads like the antlers of an elk, a woman who tells her that her time is not done.

“Little one,” the goddess of Death purrs, “you are not meant to dwell with me.”

A woman with silver hair and a Queen with golden scales sit by her sides, and Ari finds herself staring.

The Goddess of Death laughs.

“Three is better than one, nestling. I trust you’ve learned that lesson by now.”

Ari thinks of Ron, who is like a young, untested version of the Golden Queen, with fire burning hot in his voice and temper.

She thinks of Hermione, who is quicker than the crack of a whip and hides the same power behind her eyes as Lady Death, though she cuts a striking contrast between her own youth and dark skin and Lady Death’s comparative age (though she’s quite pretty for it, Ari will admit) and paleness.

And she thinks of herself, calm, collected, and light on her feet, a guardian, and looks to the third, who hides behind her wings the flicker of lightning.

She thinks she understands.

-

Ari wakes up again to words.

“Three left!” her captor cries, the mist that had been Ari’s swirling around and through his head. Ari doesn't really know  _ how _ she can see it, only that she can, and it's  _ awful. _

She also gets the vague sense that something  _ enormous _ has just happened.

She hears a gasp from Spencer, and manages to pull herself to her knees. Claws (claws?) scrape on the cement floor. She feels like growling. She doesn't know why.

“I think,” she hisses, “you miscounted.”

The man- she will not dignify him with a name- slams her up onto the wall, hands around her neck again. The mist swirls into his head.

_ ‘Fuck it’ _ she thinks, and, with a surprising amount of strength, kicks him in the chest. Hard.

The man stumbles back, but regains ground soon enough. Ari doesn't dare freeze- now that she’s shown that they're willing to fight back, he’ll kill the others. She hooks clawed (clawed?) fingers into his hands, and  _ rips. _

She is so busy fighting for her life that she barely notices when her teeth lock around his arm. She doesn't notice when she bites down strong enough to crack the bone in two.

The man has shifted his attention from attempting to get his hands around her neck again to frantically trying to dislodge her, but Ari twists like a crocodile with a wildebeest in its grip, and there is a second sickening crack. The mist screams at her, screams for her to stop, but Ari will not listen to something that abandoned her.

It’s the sound of one of the little ones screeching in fear that brings her back to reality. She stops the hand scrabbling at her face, and releases the arm.

She runs to Max, who reaches for her, trying to mumble out words through thick, gasping sobs.

“I'm alright, munchkin,” she whispers, trying not to think about the fact that she’s barely four years older than him- and he’s eight.

Anna is shaking, as well. Ari comforts her as best she can, and turns to face what the little one is staring so fixatedly at, in case she has to lunge for their captor again.

It's not necessary.

He’s spasming on the floor, foaming at the mouth. Ari thinks it’s probably a violent reaction to whatever he was on- be it medication, drugs, alcohol, or a mix of the three- but it's not the biggest of her worries at the moment.

Her primary concern, of course, is how in Merlin’s name she’s planning to get out.

-

Dr. Reid assures them all that they're going to be fine. Ari trusts him well enough, so she pokes around the door a little bit, wiggling the new long claws at the end of her fingers. She assumes that, like most things, they're a manifestation of her magic, and they’ll go away soon enough. Her eyes have adjusted to the dark- though the others’ haven't, at least not as well, and Ari will attribute that to having grown up in a dark cupboard. Spencer gives her an odd look at that. Ari shrugs.

To be completely honest, she’d rather not go back to the Dursleys after being kidnapped (and possibly murdered, though she won’t voice that particular concern) by some sort of mass murderer or cultist or whatever that man had been. She doesn't voice this part, of course, but Reid, as he’s now asked that they all call him (though Anna and Max are still referring to him as Doctor, to his apparent delight), will likely see straight through that, if what she’s seen in their confinement is in any way indicative of the full scope of his personality.

Reid begins excitedly chattering about Doctor Who with the two youngest, then stops mid-sentence with a wince. Ari pauses. She knows what that abrupt stop means- it means too many people irritably snapping that nobody cares.

“No, go on, it's actually pretty nice to think about something other than,” she says, and waves her arms around for emphasis, “this.”

Reid smiles brightly, and continues to chatter on about different long-running television programmes to his captive audience, who are clearly almost as actively engaged as the agent is.

Ari sticks a clawed finger into the lock, and begins wiggling them. Then, she smacks herself.

Looking behind her to insure that none of the others are watching too closely, she focuses as hard as she can ok what she wishes to happen, she whispers,

“Alohomora!”

There are a few things that happen, but none are the intended result.

There are sparks from her fingers, which glow in an array of spots- something Ari thinks is a very weird thing for her Magic to give her.

The lock glows red, though thankfully it doesn't melt.

And, most thankfully, the others don’t react.

Ari decides to try again.

-

She gives up after about thirty tries and instead works on finding her wand so that she can actually get them all out of there.

Agent Reid is still entertaining Max and Anna with his encyclopedic knowledge of what seems like, quite literally, everything, and occasionally speaking with the rest of his team, who are likely on their way. Ari digs through the stockpile of things on the other, much nicer side of the basement, which is at least filled with water and canned food, which is nice enough.

“Could you check if these are poisoned?” Ari calls as she tosses a pack of the water bottles at Agent Reid, who catches them with a bewildered look on his face, then obliges.

“They're good!” he calls back. Ari smiles, and continues to dig through the pile. She finds Agent Reid’s gun, which goes onto the table, along with several others, which join it. Ari will ask around for lessons at some point- she wonders how good a Dark Wizard would be against something that fires faster than a spell can fly.

She knows she’s being a bit on the violent side when it comes to her thoughts, but she is curious, after all.

_ ‘The answer is probably Not Well,’ _ she thinks, and snorts to herself once.

Near the bottom of the pile is her bag, with her wand, passport, and other assorted belongings safely inside. She breathes a deep sigh of relief- he likely was planning to take them later, maybe, as a trophy, or maybe even never at all.

Maybe, before she’d acted, their destiny was to rot at the bottom of this fucking basement.

Ari grumbles, and, with wand in hand, returns to the door. Agent Reid and the other two have busied themselves with rehydration, and aren't all too focused on what she’s doing- which is good. It's very good. She’d rather they not have to be oblivated, even though the younger two likely needed it.

The thought of what a faulty obliviation had done to Lockhart last year still chilled her. To have to see that happen to someone else? Awful. Just awful. And Lockhart wasn't even a good person, unlike the three Ari sees when she looks across the room.

She draws her wand from the bag.

“Alohomora,” she whispers.

The door opens.

As she turns to call for them to follow, the shape behind her gives her pause.

There is a tail, stretching for quite the distance, mostly furred, but ending in a large cluster of feathers from about three-quarters down and onwards. Subconsciously, she moves them.

The feathers fan out, like the tail of a bird.

And in her shadow, stretching down the stairs, Ari sees something that makes her freeze like a statue.

In her shadow, Ariela Lily Potter sees  _ wings. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyy ok so i'm going to explain a lot of shit with a lot of infodumps over the next several chapters  
> so i'm not going to give anything away here  
> but yes i am making ari as clueless/occasionally brilliant as book harry.  
> like?? claws because magic? ok. thinks of using magic to break out, attacking attacker, and checking for poison in water bottles? also ok


	2. whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ari figures out how several things work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is primarily just a setup chapter. I wanted to get some of the what-the-hell-am-i angles out of the way, so i could get to Ari figuring out how to fly and generally be what she is in later chapters without being too vague

To be completely honest, Agent Reid takes it the most in stride out of any of them, including the little ones, who, by all forms of logic, should be the least frightened and the most intrigued.

But Agent Reid asks question after question out of the gate, and it’s only after repeated and progressively more frantic “I don’t  _ know” _ s from Ari that he even begins to start slowing himself down.

Ari lifts her wings above her head as they continue to explore the house, comparing them with what little she knows of the wings of birds. They don’t match quite up with those of owls, which are far more rounded. She remembers the few falconry demonstrations she’s seen- most notably, a woman walking around town with a goshawk on her arm- and stretches them out further.

Her wings are  _ definitely _ built for either speed or long-distance- maybe both. They’re long and tapered, strong and smooth. She beats the air a few times (but gently, so as to not actually leave the ground), and hears a very faint rasping noise, almost imperceptible. So she’s not silent, like an owl.

She blinks as the dust rises, but it’s not a normal one- something clear slides over her eyes. She freezes again, and takes a deep breath- or what she thinks is one, until she can breathe even deeper.

Alright. Nictitating membrane, larger lungs. Something feels almost off with her breathing, too, like something  _ could _ click into place, but  _ won’t _ while she’s on the ground.

She tilts an ear towards her feathers, again, and takes another pause.

She runs clawed hands over her head, finding somewhat short, but upright ears extending from slightly higher than her normal ears would be. Likely, they’re more sensitive than a humans, though she’s not sure why she would need these, and not ear-holes on the side of her head like a bird, instead. More air resistance with external ears, and all that.

But they do, at least, give her the clearest sounds she’s ever heard. From the tiniest of sounds, she knows where everyone in the house is.

Curious, she closes her eyes, and squeaks faintly, trying to navigate around the room. She opens them after nearly bumping in to  _ several _ walls.

No echolocation, at least not yet, though they are sensitive and can triangulate. She listens for Agent Reid with a giddy smile on her face.

Sharing what you’ve learned with other people really is a nice feeling.

-

As she enters the next room, Ari is overcome with the desire to mantle her wings over her head and cast a shadow like she’s the Angel of Death themself. Her wings aren’t quite the right shape for that- she’s decided that they’re likely shaped the most like a falcon’s, so they’re not half as wide and imposing as a hawk’s or eagle’s.

She pauses and wonders if they have a bone club like the wings of a swan. That would be interesting- swans beat attackers rather savagely with their wings. Swans, the terror of the bird world.

Using her wings as clubs would actually be pretty cool.

And besides, on the Angel of Death thing, her wings are light on the insides. Though barred heavily with black and dark gray (and, occasionally, to her surprise, a very unsaturated green) near the edges, closest to her shoulders, the interior feathers are a pale, pearly gray, like the down on a goshawk.

Max and Anna have found the comfortable couches, and Agent Reid is attempting to get the phone to work.

“Did you notice you have fangs?” he calls from beside the power outlet, and Ari frowns.

She does, apparently, have fangs. Functional ones, too. That explains how she was able to snap the man’s arm in two and hold on while he flailed for dear life.

“No, I did not. There’s something on the roof of my mouth, as well, though I haven’t the faintest clue what it is. And no, that is not an invitation for anyone to put their fingers in there to see what it is, Anna,” she replies. The five year old retracts her hands immediately, and Ari smiles at her. She slides her tail out of Max’s inquisitive grip, turning the feathered end in on itself.

Something large drops, Ari panics, and she immediately learns  _ why _ she instinctively moved her tail like that.

A surge of magic extends to her feathers, compressing and shifting them into a completely different material, blade-sharp and completely non-functional for their original purpose.

Alright, then. She’s coated in feathers that turn to tiny blades when she’s startled. Okay. She can handle this.

-

Ari manages to calm herself enough that crystalline-whatever feathers turn back to soft down. She carefully arranges herself on the second couch so that her wings aren’t trapped and she’s not sitting on her tail (which, unfortunately, means she’s sitting on her stomach), and snags the closest book she can grab on the shelf.

They're going to be stuck for a little while.

Her ears are pointed in the direction of Max and Anna, and she keeps a close eye on Agent Reid as well. She yawns widely (wider than normal, she notes, and figures it's probably got something to do with how her jaw is set up now), and reaches a now-spotted arm across to the table, where her water bottle is sitting.

Her head is killing her, everything’s too bright, too smelly, too loud. She just wants to  _ sleep. _

-

She wakes, a long while later, to Agent Reid tapping her in the shoulder.

She yawns widely, again, and pinks a bit when a startled “whoa” sounds from behind Reid. Blinking her now-overlarge eyes into focus, she smiles (full of teeth) up at what she assumes is another FBI agent.

“Hello!” she chirps, and moves. She hears another gasp as her wings fan out from behind her, and her tail scrapes along the floor.

Ari can get used to feeling like a dragon. It’s quite nice, after all.

“Agent Greenaway, pleasure to meet you,” the agent murmurs. Ari smiles again, but this time with less teeth.

“Ariela Potter, call me Ari, please. Or the inevitable political nightmare you’re about to deal with, unfortunately,” she purrs, stretching her wings and arranging them to take up as little space as she can manage while still keeping the feathered ends off the floor. She may be no owl, but she’d still like to keep her feather-tips neat, thank you very much.

She blinks again.  _ That _ is a lot of instinctive behavior that she’s just rationalized.

“And why’s that?” Agent Greenaway asks. Ari tips her tail towards Agent Reid, who is bouncing on his heels excitedly, ready to answer, but looks to her for approval to take the lead.

“Well, for starters, she’s not an American citizen. She’s not here illegally, at least, but it’s still going to be a pain in the ass. However, the Moondancer protocol-” Ari’s eyes widen at a word she  _ knows _ from her magic education.

“Wait,  _ what?” _ she hisses. Spencer-Agent Reid- whatever, she’ll just call him Reid- brings his eyes up again, a questioning look on his face.

“What, about the Moondancer protocol? It’s-”

“Not about that, sorry, but, ah, I was under the impression I was the only one in the room that knew about magic,” she says. Reid shakes his head.

“Elle’s a witch. I’m- nobody really knows with me, I guess,” he says. The stress bleeds visibly away from Ari’s shoulders.

“Anyways. You were explaining the Moondancer protocol?” Ari asks, and she can  _ see _ Reid light up.

“The Moondancer protocol, to be completely honest, and this is coming from someone I know who’s an actual Moondancer, is weird. It states that a country of manifest can have an equal or greater claim to any given person than country of birth or country of citizenship. No matter what you manifested  _ into _ , it would definitely qualify as a manifestation. This makes it even more complicated, because it tosses even more precedent out of the window,” he hums. Ari grins encouragingly.

“So basically, we have no clue what to do with me, then?” she chirps. Her spots flicker like flashing lights, in some kind of pattern that she’ll look into more later.

“Nope,” Reid replies peppily, and Ari laughs. Agent Greenaway smiles faintly at her, then leans over to Reid to whisper something to him.

Ari swivels her ears forwards, and gives a rather pointed look.

“How old are you, Ari?” Agent Greenaway asks softly. Ari balks, just a little bit, at the question. She's not some tiny fragile child.

Well, legally, she reasons, she sort of is.

“Twelve, almost thirteen,” she mumbles, and focuses on sorting out her feathers, some of which don't look the same as they did only a few minutes prior.

“So. Ari, here’s a list of all of the things that will complicate things for the moment. One: you're not a legal US citizen. Two: under the Moondancer protocol, you very well could end up being one. Three: you're a minor. Four: we don't know what the hell you are, which means for all we know when you get back to the UK you could get slapped with a ‘Beast’ classification,” Agent Greenaway lists, checking them off manually with her fingers.

“Actually, I might know someone who could help us out with that last one. Moondancers tend to keep extensive records on sentient magical beings, and we’ve got a solid number working in government. They're very good conflict de-escalators,” Reid says.

“At Quantico, I'm guessing?” Agent Greenaway asks, and gestures towards a group of people that Ari assumes are their co-workers.

“Almost definitively. We’ve got one of the top fifty most powerful moondancers in the States at Quantico, and two more in the region, though one’s firmly tied up in the strongest and most numerous werewolf pack on the continent, and the other is, well… not the fondest of the American government, for pretty obvious reasons if you've ever met them.”

“Them?” a voice asks. Ari frowns.

“Hey, Hotch, we respect pronouns in the BAU. Remember that,” Reid says, and Ari nods sagely.

“Did Blackwood tell you to say that?” Agent Greenaway snorts. Reid blinks.

“No, not really. It's simply a logical conclusion- it's just polite to respect people's gender identity. Even if you don't understand it, even if you slip up, it's important to make the effort,” he says.

“Who’s Blackwood?” Ari asks.

“Doctor Cassius Blackwood, the only person at Quantico who’s ever actively started a screaming match with the BAU and  _ wasn't  _ an UnSub,” Agent ‘Hotch’ mutters under his breath.

“You're describing a colleague like Regina George. And you're oversimplifying the whole thing. So, you see, basically, there was this one report that we sent in about this one guy. Complete outlier scenario, by the way. Two months goes by, turns out it had spiraled into an HR nightmare because insurance suddenly wasn't covering HRT anymore. Now, Dr Blackwood is a nice enough guy, but he suffers from what I like to call Short Person, Short Temper. He’s like five foot four and I think if he believed he could get away with strangling about half the people in Quantico he would probably do it. But anyways, apparently Hotch-Agent Hotchner here,” Agent Greenaway says, elbowing the agent in the ribs, “worded something very, very wrong. It backfired spectacularly, and Cassius, exhausted after ripping into the people actively responsible but still filled with complete and utter rage, just let it  _ all _ out. I don't even think he’s held a grudge against Hotch in particular, the guy’s just pissed off in general.”

“Wow,” Ari says, trying to picture someone filled with that much rage on a regular basis. She can kind of understand it- she knows from stories that she’s heard that the American healthcare system is uniquely terrible, and a trans man being denied HRT would likely be, understandably, very upset, but he sounds like a very irritable person to begin with.

“Well, we’re going to be talking to him anyways,” Reid chirps, and Agent Hotchner lets out the largest sigh that Ari has heard in ages.

“Why?” he asks tiredly.

“Networking skill. Cassius knows a  _ lot _ of people,” Reid replies simply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! cassius is here! one of my longer running characters, cassius's main skill is networking. he knows everyone. anyways elle and hotch are just being drama queens about it anyone would get apocaleptically upset in that scenario so  
> basically the running joke later on is that hotch thinks cass holds a grudge against him and cass does literally nothing to disprove it. he doesn't actually spike hotch's cup with laxatives, but he sure as hell doesn't tell hotch that


	3. wingbeats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassius Blackwood takes them to the Continentals. It is not explained why they are called the Continentals, because that detail is not relevant yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways say hi to the seer (aviv hadar) the general (akiva demeru) and the guardian (avalanche)

Cassius Blackwood turns out to be both as short as expected and much less angry than Ari’s been told. Frankly, he looks quite a bit like her, with the same green eyes, dark skin, and curly hair, though he definitely passes as human while she… does not.

He ushers them into his office with a warm smile, and gestures for them to take a seat. Ari waits until Reid and Agent Greenaway (Hotch and the other members of the BAU that she hasn’t quite met yet had declined for obvious reasons) are already seated before shuffling awkwardly.

Doctor Blackwood transfigures a chair to accommodate her with a wave of the hand, only pausing at Ari’s noise of confusion.

“You do know that you don't necessarily need a wand anymore, yes?” he asks gently. Ari stares at him incredulously, and Dr. Blackwood gives her the biggest, most excited smile she’s ever seen.

“No,” she ventures cautiously, waiting for the hyper explanation. Dr. Blackwood is energy manifested in human form, it seems, and he does not disappoint.

“You know how all wand cores are made from parts of magical creatures, yes?” he asks. Ari nods.

“The classic Ollivander’s wand is made up of one of three cores, phoenix, unicorn, or dragon, though that’s certainly not the only valid wand core. For example, Elle?” he hums, and gestures to Agent Greenaway.

“Thunderbird feather,” she says warmly, rolling her wand in her hand.

“Not only that, but many French families with Veela ancestry use hair of family members, creating a more loyal wand that will not falter if the wielder is disarmed or killed- the wand not only wishes to protect its wielder, but its  _ family _ . Depending on the sentient magical creature in question, and how powerful they are magically, often, parts of one’s own self are sufficient for conducting magic. For example- you know I am a Moondancer, yes?” he asks. Ari nods again, curious as to how many times he’s going to ask her to affirm something he already knows.

“Well, Moondancers have highly efficient magic that normally doesn’t rely on the use of a wand. It’s detrimental to what we do, you know. Spells are slightly different with us, and focus more on the theoretical and willpower than movements and words, but either way, since we’re magically charged to begin with- well, it’s like wearing specs when you don’t need them,” he says, and Ari is struck by the sudden realization that Blackwood, though he’s clearly cultivated a bit of an American tint to his voice, is most certainly a fellow Brit.

“Do you know what I am?” she blurts out, and Dr. Blackwood smiles again.

“Yes, I do, actually, and I’m surprised Spencer and Elle haven’t figured it out themselves,” he says, and turns to Reid.

“Feather-type  _ practical _ wings, extremely lightweight, large lungs, large eyes, rotating ears,  flexible tail, fangs,” he lists off, “and, most importantly, because there’s an  _ entire form of sign language based around it,  _ bioluminescent markings.”

“I hear your evidence and do not have the knowledge to make a conclusion,” Reid retorts, and she can see the exasperation rolling off of Blackwood in waves.

“She’s T’karian, my genius, dumbass friend,” he hums. Neither Reid nor Greenaway react to this statement.

“What does that mean?” Ari asks. Blackwood pops back up, a smile on his face.

“That, my dear,” he says chipperly, “means we’re all going to have to pay a visit to the Continentals.”

-

Ari tries to match Dr. Blackwood in his energy, but she’s at a complete loss. The man, while only a few centimeters taller than herself, has a loping, wolf-like gait more than appropriate for what he is. Her legs just don’t work right, which Dr. Blackwood explains along the way. They’ve gone through two portkeys already when, in the middle of a thick forest that’s about ten degrees colder than Virginia, he stops.

“Your leg-to-torso ratio has changed, but your height hasn’t. Take a look at your feet- you’re probably unconsciously walking on your toes, yeah?” he hums. Ari raises a foot- he’s right.

“Where are we?” Greenaway asks from behind them, still queasy from the second portkey.

“Can’t tell you,” Dr. Blackwood says chipperly, “and by the way, Elle, please do try to avoid talking about my personal information to people you’ve not known long, even if they are trustworthy.”

Greenaway blanches. Ari looks at Dr. Blackwood curiously.

“We Moondancers are empaths, minor telepaths, the whole works. Anything to help us do our jobs, you know?”

Ari does not know, but she appreciates the sentiment.

There is a snuffling growl from the trees. In response, Dr. Blackwood steps forwards, and  _ stretches _ .

In an instant- the quickest, most fluid transformation Ari’s seen- a wolf, taller at the shoulders than Dr. Blackwood in his human shape, stands before them, with long, dappled, dark gray fur, like clouds heralding rain, fringed with the black of shadows.

In his wolf-shape, Dr. Blackwood sings with the intonation of something mythic, beyond himself. As a wolf, he seems older than the stars, and speaks with a voice akin to that of a dragon.

“We come to speak with the Seer, the General, and the Guardian,” he rumbles, eyes aglow like the embers of a dying fire.

“And which of the three is the most urgent?” the other wolf, a deep russet in color, asks.

“If we must see only one, we seek the counsel of the General,” he replies cooly. The other wolf tilts their head.

“And why, pray tell, do you seek counsel with the General?” they ask. Dr. Blackwood gestures with his tail towards Ari, who opens her wings nervously. The red wolf’s eyes widen, and they run to the trees.

Dr. Blackwood’s shoulders loosen, just a bit. He looks to them with worry, and Ari shoots him a reassuring smile.

The russet wolf does not return- in their place is a large (larger than Dr. Blackwood, at least) wolf with a clearly magical origin that cannot be ignored.

The wolf’s fur is  _ blue. _

Dr. Blackwood knows this one, apparently, because he greets them with a smile, and a grateful nod.

“Hello, Cassius,” the blue wolf rumbles, laughter on their voice.

“Hello, Lila,” Dr. Blackwood replies, turning back to the three of them, “Ari, Spencer, Elle, this is Lila McIntyre. We’re going to be following her.”

The blue wolf nods her head, then turns, disappearing into the trees again. Ari widens.

“Is it like platform 9 ¾?” she asks. Dr. Blackwood gives her a conspiratorial wink, disappearing between an oak and an evergreen- a short, stout juniper.

Ari folds her wings closer into herself, takes a deep breath, and steps through the barrier.

It’s not like 9 ¾, where, aside from last year, she was able to step through without much seeming strange aside from the fact that a whole extra platform was there.

The forest-barrier assesses her, and deems her worthy of entry.

-

Ari steps out behind Dr. Blackwood, and into a world of color.

There are dragons, both the kind Ari has seen, and those she hasn't even heard of- massive, six-limbed creatures like the Golden Queen. The largest of them is an ice-white silvery-blue, with the largest wings Ari has ever seen, which coils herself in the center of the square.

“Avalanche!” Lila calls, and the ice-blue dragon lifts her head, and begins to walk towards them. For such a large creature, it is a surprise that the ground does not shake as she moves, though Ari thinks this is likely because she is far lighter than she looks. She wonders if Avalanche is ‘the General’.

Avalanche begins to shrink as she reaches them. White scales and blue feathers are replaced with white hair and dark skin, and massive claws and teeth shrink down to nothing more than those which are on the longer end of the human normal.

Avalanche gives Ari an appraising glance, and her eyes widen.

“Lila, if you would collect Akiva, please. I do believe they have come to speak with him,” she hums. Her voice is surprisingly high for a dragon in a human shape (the implications of which have not quite settled in Ari’s mind). It's still deep, but it's not the rumble of her dragon-shape.

Dr. Blackwood is back on two legs, hands next to himself loosely. He does not make himself particularly larger or smaller than usual, and Ari follows his example.

Lila runs back towards them, shifting as she does so. Ari notes that the uniform she wears is the same color as the fur of her wolf-form, though she doesn't particularly know what to do with that information.

Behind her is the General.

-

Akiva Demeru is not as terrifying as she’d thought he'd be, with warm-colored wings in shades of gold, orange, red, white, and green, and a gentle smile on his face.

His reaction to her presence is disbelief, then joy, and it's not until someone explains to her exactly what is going on that she understands why.

It's her eye color, that has what is apparently a usually distinguished man in such a tizzy. And the explanation given to her by Avalanche is incredibly confusing.

Eye color, with T’karians, is apparently either exclusively passed matrilineally, or through the T’karian side, if the matrilineal family is not T’karian.

“It's one of the surest way to tell who you're related to on sight, actually,” another blue-gray-furred wolf says.

“Ari, this is Aviv Hadar, with the most ridiculous nickname out of all of us, Aviv, this is Ari,” Avalanche says. Ari blinks again.

“So?”

“Have you checked Akiva’s eye-color, pup?” Aviv asks, a smile on her face.

Ari pauses.

Oh. Okay.  _ Okay. _

“Wouldn't you be a little bit excited to find a cousin you didn't even know existed?” Aviv hums.

“I think that  _ just happened, _ ” Ari replies, and Aviv tosses her head back and  _ laughs. _

-

There’s a blur of silver and a blur of blue-green, and Ari feels a weight settle around her shoulders. She looks up to see a pair of bottle-green eyes that match her own, and, in the tree next to her, a brighter, lighter, almost mint-colored set.

“Hello! I’m Miriam!” the first one chirps, leaping off of Ari’s shoulders. Her feathers are like a lighter version of Ari’s own- a soft, dove-gray like the color of an overcast sky.

The other mumbles her own name- Hadassah- and coils around herself. Hers are the blue-green of before, and Ari notes that unlike Miriam, Hadassah’s wings feature far more of the green. They are also far darker, glossier, and iridescent than Miriam’s, closer to the chirpier one’s eye color than her own.

Ari thinks she looks just a little like a starling, though she won't say that out loud.

“Da said we should say hello. And call me Dos or die,” Hadassah- Dos- hums. Ari figures she's probably shy.

“Ariela. Nice to meet you, Dos, Miriam,” she calls.

“Call me Mir! You don't know how to fly, do you?” Mir asks.

“ _ Miriam! _ ” Dos hisses. Ari wonders if she’d be able to do that same thing with her wings that Dos is doing, because she looks near three times her size.

“What?” Mir asks, fluffing up her own feathers. With widening eyes, Ari realizes that their color is changing.

“No,” she says, and pauses for a moment, “it’s fine. Miriam, you're right. I don't know how to fly.”

She flares out her wings for emphasis.

“That's fine. Come with me. Mir likes to pretend she's the better flyer, but she’s a cheat, ‘cause we all know she just messes with the wind to make it easier for her,” Dos hums, gesturing with her tail for Ari to follow.

She wonders what Dos means by “messing with the wind”.

-

In fact, Dos had meant everything Ari thought she had meant.

Ari swivels her head towards her cousin (relative?) and tries to copy the other T’karian’s minute movements, while Mir creates an updraft to keep them aloft. She tests her wings more- down-and-out, up-and-back- and rises higher into the air.

Dos keeps a watchful eye on her, following her up. Ari continues with the pattern.

And then, once they're at least a kilometer in the air, and Ari is feeling, well, free as a bird, Dos gestures for Mir to stop cushioning them with air.

Ari, for just a split second, drops. Her wings fold in on themselves in their terror, and her mind goes blank as she races towards the ground. She tries to remember everything Dos has said, but- no.

She snaps her wings open with as much force as she can manage, and pushes down-and-out.  _ Hard. _

And then she repeats, and repeats, and repeats.

She barely hears Dos’s excited yelp over the beat of her own heart, the sound of blood rushing through her ears.

She's just almost died, and she's  _ flying.  _ Under her own power.

No enchantments, no broomsticks, no created updraft. She is flying, and she is doing it all on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flying scenes are fun and I love them  
> mir and dos are mostly background characters usually, but since I'm angling for ari to end up living with Akiva if it makes enough sense (since, y'know, maternal relative that's not shit), they're def going to show up later  
> a lot
> 
> anyways! some more setup on weird t'karian powers (like color-changing and aerokinesis, which usually corresponds with standard wing color so I bet y'all can guess what Kiv's kinetic ability is)


	4. self

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whoa!!! starting to get some plot relevance here!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha more flying scenes! but also akiva-centric and holy shit actual info on why aviv's nickname is The Seer

Ari relishes the feeling that flying brings.

Mir joins them in the air soon after Ari gets the hang of things, laughing and showing her how to spin and dive and gain altitude. Ari’s tail fans out like a rudder.

Mir folds her tail-feathers in, turns, and falls.

Ari’s breath hitches, and her heart jumps into her throat. She watches as Mir dives closer to the ground, so close to death, she needs to-

“She’s fine!” Dos calls, shouting over the wind. Ari can barely hear her over the sound of her own heartbeat, but still relaxes. Mir’s wings fan out dozens of feet above the ground, and she uses the momentum to spin herself back up towards them. Ari cheers in encouragement.

Then, with a wicked grin, she folds in her tail, tucks in her wings, and twists.

She’s already lost a hundred feet of altitude when she hears Dos’s panicked screech that it’s a maneuver for someone who’s been flying for years, but she doesn’t care. She made the quidditch team in her first year. She caught the Snitch with her mouth in her first game. She  _ still  _ caught the Snitch despite being attacked by a rogue bludger in her  _ second year. _

Ariela Potter knows she can fly. The biggest hurdle now is proving it.

How she can still breathe while going as fast as she is is a mystery to her. The wind is screaming past her ears, and her nictitating membrane swipes across her eyes as much as it can.

The ground is approaching rapidly. Ari’s hypnotized by it- it feels like she’s in a movie, the kind that overuses the Dolly Zoom.

With a sound like the opening of an umbrella, Ari stretches out her wings and pushes downwards, angling up. Her momentum carries her skywards, like Mir’s had. She's met with applause from the other two. 

Now that all three of them are hovering in the same place, Ari compares the structure of her wings with theirs.

Hers are thinner than Dos’s, which are wide and broad, like an eagle’s. Mir’s are wider and shorter than her own, and they bring to Ari’s mind images of a goshawk.

She wonders how well they'd do in a race.

However, Dos seems to have different ideas, and drops towards the ground, gesturing for them to follow her.

Ari waits for Mir to begin her descent before folding in her own wings- she knows from what she understands of bird wings that her drop will likely be faster than Miriam’s, and she still doesn't know how to land properly.

It’s simpler than she thinks it is, with just minor hovering and a gentle drop, though Ari will avoid carrying anything fragile with her for a time. Her bones can take it- a glass teapot, for example, cannot.

She copies Dos and Mir’s movements with their wings once on the ground, and finds that it’s much easier to stand while upright when her wings are folded in on themselves, giving her a wider range of movement.

Dos hangs back while Miriam runs forwards, pulling a dark teal wing over Ari’s shoulders.

Ari smiles, faintly.

-

The genetic test that Atara had suggested was… not the worst idea.

The Moondancer is not one of the most powerful on the continent for nothing, after all, and magical strength only gets one so far.

Akiva takes into account the number of family members he’ll have to test for a direct link, preferably a grandparent, if he can find one, and sighs.

He watches Hadassah and Miriam with Ariela, and his heart hurts. The fledgeling is quiet, curious, and so, so hesitant. While she does assert herself at times, she falls back almost immediately on her points when one of the other two assert their own positions, even when she’s very likely right.

She copies Miriam’s movements as much as she can, and is so, so eager to learn. It reminds Akiva painfully of himself as a child.

She looks like his sister, he thinks. She looks like Kefira.

But to his two-and-a-little-bit thousand years of knowledge, Kefira has no children, much less grandchildren or great-grandchildren, the latter of which is Ariela’s more likely status if it is true.

He looks out the window again. Miriam is an eagle now, and Hadassah is an osprey. They appear to be coaching Ariela through the motions of a shift, and Akiva is filled with a surge of gratefulness for his daughters’ intellects.

Teaching Ariela to shift  _ now _ will assist her later, if she has to hide.

Akiva dearly hopes she does not have to.

-

Aviv worries for them.

For her Pack, for her wife (though Atara can clearly take care of herself, she still worries), for Akiva.

Avalanche joins her. The tremendous dragon knows that they cannot get involved- yet.

They are an army of three (or four, sometimes). No matter how long it takes for Akiva to ask them for help, they will give it when the time comes.

And it is coming soon- Aviv can feel it.

It whispers in the back of her mind with thousands of voices, creeps on the edges of her vision with the scattered bodies of the dead.

Aviv knows she cannot make this stop. That until it has come to pass, it will still claw at her to be seen, to be heard.

So, with a friend at her side, and the sun high in the sky, she lets it in.

-

The scream of pain alerts Ari to the fact that something isn't right.

Dos and Mir’s hushed whispers putting a name to the voice do nothing to quiet Ari’s nervousness- it is not the full moon. Why is Aviv screaming?

She leaps into the air with as much force as she can muster, and rises higher and higher, searching for the source.

It is the glow that gives her pause, next.

Aviv’s eyes, which Ari knows already are a dark, but warm golden-brown, are alight like someone has replaced them with light bulbs. She mumbles nonsense under her breath, and her hands shake with unseen effort.

Ari reaches out a hand to her, and Aviv grasps it.

_ “Keep yourself armed, roll when you fall, pretend to be human,” _ she hisses,  _ “and do not let your guard down, when you hold the Cup.” _

Well. That was specific.

Ari has no clue where that may come to pass, but she does know it's likely important. Thankfully, Aviv has not grasped her hard enough to break bone (she's seen the werewolf’s strength, and she's thankful for that), and is only barely disoriented when she comes out of it.

Ari wonders if this is what Divination will be like, next year.

She has the sneaking suspicion that it won't be.

-

Ari doesn’t want to go.

In less than two days, she’s found family that cares for her, she's learned how to  _ fly. _

Even as she changes shape, makes herself heavier, hides her wings, shrinks her eyes, she yearns to stay longer.

Cassius- it's Cassius now, she's met his great-times-a-lot aunt and that certainly changes things- seems the most sympathetic. Reid is more excited to see her again than anything else, which Ari appreciates.

Greenaway is absent.

In her place is a tall (well, he's really only the same height as Reid, but the drastic difference in the amount of musculature between the two suggest more height on the other man than the young doctor, and he's definitely much taller than Cassius) man, with short hair and calculating eyes. He's distinctively older than Cassius and Reid, but is certainly not so old it would impact his duties.

“Ah. Ian, this is Miss Potter, Ari, this is Ian,” Cassius says, gesturing to the man. Ari smiles. She finds Ian vaguely intimidating, but if Cassius- who’s judgement she  _ definitely _ trusts now- sees him as a friend, that fear is clearly unfounded.

Ian gives her a gentle smile, the kind that she’s found graces many people’s faces when they deal with particularly skittish children.

“Agent Edgerton works closely with us at Quantico,” Reid starts, and Edgerton cuts him off, vaguely amusedly.

“You say that, and you’ll forget to mention that,” he says, and takes on an incredibly exaggerated tone, like he’s reading aloud from a comic book, “I’m Cassius Blackwood’s Partner in Anti-Crime.”

Ari giggles. Cassius does, too. She sees that same skittish-child smile directed towards the Moondancer, and wonders what happened between when these two met and now.

She thinks it's probably a lot.

-

Agent Edgerton at Quantico is  _ much  _ different from Agent Edgerton in The Woods With Friends, though that is to be expected.

At Quantico, he is reserved, astute. He’s not so far as to be antisocial- frankly, he's plenty social, he's just… distant.

Cassius seems to make it his personal mission to be there, to bring him back down to earth. Apparently, it is his job, actually.

Agent Edgerton is a werewolf. Specifically, from what Ari can tell after watching Atara interact with her Pack, he’s Cassius’s werewolf.

Agent Edgerton talks with Cassius like an equal, speaks about him like an equal. But, like all werewolves she's met, he has a fierce protective streak, and when he interacts with Cassius, it seems to manifest in one of two ways- like that of a parent and that of an older sibling.

Personally, Ari would bet on the latter. Cassius seems to pick up on it as well (no wonder, it is part of the job description).

Almost everyone at Quantico gives Agent Edgerton a wide berth. The only ones who  _ don't  _ are the ones who seem to be far more wary of Cassius without Agent Edgerton, which makes Ari think that the whole Moondancer-Werewolf stability thing might go both ways.

Cassius doesn't tiptoe around herself or Agent Edgerton, thankfully. He hovers over and around Agent Edgerton most of the time, even occasionally clinging to the much taller man’s shoulders, but he doesn't ignore Ari either.

Ari appreciates that.

-

Reid, however, has not changed a bit in the two days that Ari has spent with her cousins.

After meandering around Quantico behind Cassius and Edgerton for a while, Reid directs her towards the BAU, under the excuse of assessing her mental state after such a traumatic experience.

(What Ari does not know, however, is that Atara told Cassius her suspicions about Ari’s less-than-stellar home life, and Cassius, knowing that Reid would have more sway when it came to providing evidence to imprison her former guardians, passed this information on.)

Reid’s questions go from the basic (how was it, did she have fun, e.g.), to the specific but understandable (did she clock her top speed, if so, what was it) to the kind that Ari understands are a bit on the leading side.

Then, Reid turns to look around the bullpen. Ari cocks her head to the side, but doesn't interrupt. Reid looks back to her.

“Ari, I have to ask if I can record your next answers,” he says. Ari, surprised, nods.

“Can you describe your home life?” he asks, and Ari’s heart feels strange.

Normally, a question like that would fill her with fear. She knows that if the Dursleys knew she’d said anything, they’d hurt her like never before.

Now that she thinks about it, that’s not a healthy response to anything.

“What do you mean?” she asks, and Reid looks so  _ sad. _

Ari’s breath quickens as he explains what he means. She understands. It feels like when she’d taken off her glasses with these new eyes.

She is  _ right. _ The Dursleys were in the wrong, and they couldn’t do  _ anything. _

She knows that they may still get a chokehold on her again if she stays silent.

But here it is- a way to get out. She knows Akiva will likely fight tooth and nail for her, already, even from the barest of interactions, just for the fact that she  _ is. _

She just needs to give him and the rest of them a leg up.

She needs to  _ trust someone. _

She _knows,_ in her head, that how they treated her is wrong. She knows, and she is angry. She has gotten a taste of what life outside the Dursleys would be like, and even though she’s pretty sure she doesn't deserve this chance, she will grasp onto it with all her might, and she will not let go unless they pry it from her cold, dead fingers.

Ariela Potter, for once, sees herself as worth the effort.

She locks eyes with Reid.

“I got into this mess in the first place because my legal guardians drugged me and left me by myself in a foreign country. And until age eleven, I lived in a cupboard under the stairs,” she begins. Over the next few hours, with the dictating machine thankfully clearly on, she tells her tale.

-

Spencer is anxious. Cassius can tell.

His head is in his hands, and only a tendril of energy is needed for Cass to  _ feel _ his mournfulness, his desperate need to help, and the knowledge that he very well may not be able to do  _ anything. _

“ _ Spencer, _ ” Cassius says forcefully. The other man’s head snaps up.

“We can't let her go back there,” he mumbles. Cassius nods, leaning against his shoulder.

“We won't,” Cassius replies, then pauses. “Or, rather, the Demerus won't.”

“You know something I don't, again, don’t you?” Spencer asks. Cassius grins, but it's a hollow sort of smile, like he knows that the scent of blood will soon be on the wind.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of a "lightbulb moment" for Ari. It's partially because of the fact that she's spent 48 hours around literal empaths, but it's also the fact that it's something that happens in the original series- she understands that she was treated unfairly, and that it IS abuse. She is hurting, and she is ANGRY. I'm definitely going to have her actually bonding more with Akiva later on.  
> I really don't want to go for the evil-dumbledore angle, bc I feel it really doesn't work for this fic. if you were expecting that... it's not here.
> 
> anyways I cannot write straight characters for the life of me SO with the exception of characters i obviously hate (+ like, dudley) everyone is lgbtq+ unless stated otherwise
> 
> oh. and also there will be no redemption for the dursleys in this fic (aside from maaaayybe dudley, bc he's a kid) bc abusive/neglectful guardians can all go rot in the nothingness.
> 
> \+ aviv hadar has a mutation that lets her see the future. that's how it works. It's not, like, sudden-onset. She sees glimpses of a future up until she has a vision, then she can't reliably see that particular course of action anymore


	5. rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a pov-bounce between akiva (who is Fuckin Pissed) and ari (who is Nervous)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one... is very T'Kari-heavy. I like talking about the comparatively weird government of T'Kari (I mean, come on, they elect the crown princess from all the princesses, and their monarch is pointless but also /really/ NOT), but frankly this is a lot even for me  
> also more ian and cass so that's always great

As the sun rises on the third day, Akiva Demeru tests the wind with his wings, and flicks his tail behind him. He may not be a better flyer than Maya (though  _ nobody  _ is a better flyer than Maya, so it isn't really a good comparison) but he knows when the winds are right for this sort of thing.

He lifts off with a powerful push of his legs and his wings. The trees and bushes quake under the artificial wind that his massive wingspan creates as he thrashes the air.

He makes minor adjustments as he prepares himself for the trip, testing the boundary, windspeed, and lift. The barrier crackles with almost-anticipation, and Akiva closes his eyes, tucks his wings in, and dives.

There is a cacophony of noise, like the sound of a lightning strike or the firing of a cannonball, but only to his own ears. To anyone else, there is nothing but a strange light in the sky.

Akiva Demeru scans the familiar mountains, and smiles.

He is home.

-

Ari snaps awake with the feeling that something is missing.

The shift she’s made to be human appears to have reversed itself overnight. Ari repeats the process like Mir and Dos had taught her, and feels slightly robbed when her eyes lessen, her ears shrink, her nose dulls, and she can’t fly away.

Something is still missing. She wonders where she is, then remembers.

She hears Edgerton snoring softly from one of the two rooms, and Cassius making noise in the other. He steps out, a little bleary eyed, smiles, and begins to make a pot of coffee.

Ari rubs her eyes and adjusts herself on the futon, and smiles back.

Edgerton leaves his own room not long after (and Ari’s really not surprised at that- she knows that werewolves often need to be in close vicinity to their Moondancers, and roommates would likely do the trick).

“You sleep alright, kiddo?” Edgerton asks, and Ari nods.

“No nightmares?” he asked, and Ari shakes her head, wondering if Cassius, who is scrolling through Edgerton’s report with an enormous mug of coffee, would be able to tell if she is lying.

“You know we’re going to start on the paperwork for the Wandering Man soon, yeah?” Cassius mutters from his chair. Ari turns to look at him confusedly.

“The guy that kidnapped and almost killed you,” he clarifies. Ari frowns.

“I kinda think he  _ did _ kill me, actually,” she mutters. She's only a little embarrassed that she's telling this to people she met less than a week ago.

“Oh?” Edgerton asks, and takes a seat on the other chair.

Ari takes a deep breath, and tells them of the In-Between.

-

Many systems away, Akiva Demeru touches down in a surprisingly practical, but still beautiful, building.

The Queen of T’Kari  _ is _ , technically, a government official, after all, and she works where many of the others do.

Akiva lifts his wings and allows the guards to inspect the patterning. Better than a security card, if one is in an area where they cannot have them- T’Karian wings, with their millions of color and pattern combinations per feather, are more unique than even their fingerprints.

“Apologies, sir. Protocol,” one of the guards says, their eyes down. Akiva chuckles.

“If we are to feel safe within the walls, we wish for security to be good at what they do and not let anyone skip the line, yes?” he hums. The guard blushes just a bit in embarrassment, but smiles back at him.

He walks along the wide hallways, more full than usual. He notes he's getting here just as work starts. A few of the younger ones, from both T’Kari and her neighboring planets, he recognizes- he’d met them as interns.

He knocks on a wide, unassuming door, and takes a pause.

The guards stationed outside said door slowly come into view, colors returning to their shapes in patches. Akiva recognizes an old friend.

“Hello, Gevon,” he hums, and they roll their eyes with a friendly smile.

“She’s not busy. I do have to check your identification though, sir,” Gevon mutters. Akiva cheerfully lifts a wing for them to inspect.

“Go ahead, sir,” they mutter. Akiva nods, and places a hand against the door. This is the real test.

It assesses him, and determines him worthy.

Instead of a door, he knows, it is a barrier. The door was never here, and it never will be.

-

Ari arrives at Quantico with unease, hiding behind Ian (who is a better shield than Cassius, on account of the fact that he's over half a foot taller). She knows that she hasn’t met the BAU (who she has to take her case through, because it  _ was _ one of their ‘UnSubs’ that she killed in the first place) properly yet (from what Ian- and it’s Ian now- says, they're actually pretty nice people, despite the whole fictitious grudge match between Cassius and Hotchner thing), but she still would rather be inside with a warm mug of something that that tastes strong than… at Quantico.

She doesn't know how she didn't realize before how  _ loud _ the place is.

Even with her decreased hearing, it really is  _ too much. _ Cassius takes to standing in between herself and Ian, and while Ari appreciates the sentiment (especially when Cassius is leeching her fear away from her, blanketing her in calm), she’d rather be behind the guy people are avoiding, thanks.

The BAU office is far less cluttered. Ari still hides behind Cassius and Ian (because they've proved themselves Very Trustworthy, and Ari appreciates that), but waves at Reid and smiles at Greenaway. Hotchner, of course, looks uncomfortable, but, leaning on a table, is an older (well, older than the rest of the lot, at least) man that Cassius greets with a smile.

“Hello, Gideon!” he chirps. Ari cocks her head, and wonders why he greets the man so fondly.

Cassius notices her confusion, and Ari sees Shabbat candles and the architecture of a synagogue, and nods sagely. There's a bit of a bond between people who go to the same synagogue, she's heard, and she's not going to question it.

Ari creeps out from behind Ian. Reid approaches her warily, like she’s a startled animal. Ari meets him halfway, and asks him about something completely random. His attention successfully diverted, Ari relaxes.

This might not be so awful, after all.

-

“Hello, cousin,” Maya Demeru rumbles, greeting Akiva with a tired smile. The crown weighs heavy on her head- Akiva may not have seen her in decades, but he knows many of those lines were not there before.

“Hello, Your Majesty,” he replies softly, bowing his head and spreading his wings. Maya clucks her tongue.

“If you're going to call me that, cousin, then I need to call you my General. Let us forgo our titles- you are not here on official business, after all,” she says. Akiva notes from how it is carefully worded that it is an order, not a request.

“Maya, we have a problem,” he says. Maya tilts her head regally, curling her tail over Akiva’s, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I am listening, Akiva,” she replies, and Akiva remembers that this is not only his Queen he is speaking to, not only his cousin, but his sister-in-arms. He can trust her. He can tell her.

“It appears we have not been as thorough as we thought we have in making sure we know where all of our family members are,” he hums, “and we certainly did not make sure that they were all safe.”

Maya’s body language goes from relaxed to furious in an instant. Her hand digs into Akiva’s shoulder, her pupils go razor-thin like those of a cat, and a rumbling growl sounds throughout the atrium, startling the messenger at the more official doorway. Maya forces herself to relax.

“Fix this, General,” she hisses, “keep them  _ safe. _ ”

Akiva nods, as Maya Demeru turns into Queen Maya of T’Kari before his eyes.

The messenger squeaks out what she came to the Queen to say, and Maya softens.

“My apologies. General Demeru gave me news I was… not prepared to hear, though it is not his fault either. It is completely unprofessional and unbecoming of me to take my anger out on you. Could you repeat your message again, please?” she says tiredly, and the messenger brightens.

Akiva knows that until the messenger leaves, or until Maya dismisses him, he cannot leave. He watches as Maya carefully directs the messenger to someone who can actually help- the Queen, when it comes to anything but the most important decisions, is mostly a figurehead.

Akiva also sees glimpses of the princess Maya was as a child- clever, kind, gentle, but ruthless when she must be, like steel beneath a pillow. The kind of princess that was selected by the  _ people, _ amongst all the heirs, to be the Crown Princess, the next Queen.

It is one of the many things that T’Kari does to keep the power in check.

Akiva locks eyes with a pair that nearly match his own, from the ceiling. Zira watches curiously, having slipped in behind the messenger.

She has no chance at Queenship unless something happens to her elder sister, Talia, and he is grateful for that. Not because of any shortcomings on Zira’s part (or, he thinks to himself, Miriam, Hadassah, or Ariela’s parts), but simply because- well.

He looks to Maya, who is a few decades off from three thousand and already shows gray in her hair.

Heavy is the head that bears the crown.

-

Ari finds herself with her hand grasping a large chunk of Cassius’s fur before long.

The massive wolf has placed his head over her legs. It’s comforting, to give him scritches and to thread her fingers through his fur.

That’s probably the whole point on Cassius’s part, actually, but Ari doesn't voice that fact. She simply appreciates that Cassius is there, that he doesn't mind hands in his fur and sitting beside a desk, calming down from everything being a bit… much.

Ian’s also in a wolf-shape, though his fur is shorter and thinner, and he curls up beside Ari and Cassius, eyes aglow with the red of a werewolf.

Ari taps Cassius a few times on the muzzle, and stands up.

“I think I'm okay now,” she whispers hoarsely. Gideon nods from one of the chairs. Ari wipes her eyes with her sleeve, and sits on one of the taller chairs.

Cassius and Ian distribute themselves as well.

Ari takes a deep breath, and looks to the others in the room, and prepares to explain Death for the second time in a day.

“I… I was dead, to be completely honest. And it's a weird place, really. There was this lady with this weird crown that stretched roughly as wide as her arm-span, and, uh, a lot of skeletons around the place. And then I woke up like this,” she says, shifting her human appearance away, “and then I bit the Wandering Man. And then he died.”

She thinks that maybe that was a little too blunt, but they seem to take it plenty in stride. Ari wonders if they're used to dealing with things like this, with magic, or if they're just so desensitized to weird because of the things that humans already do.

Ari feels it may be the second one. A blonde woman raises her hand to ask a question.

“No offense meant, but what  _ are _ you, exactly?” she asks, then introduces herself as Penelope Garcia (‘but just call me Garcia’). Ari’s smile, hesitant at first, brightens.

She fans her wings out with a healthy dose of vanity, and launches into her explanation.

-

Akiva Demeru flies home feeling both exhausted and vindicated.

No matter what the British magical government feels it needs to throw at them, T’Kari has a better claim. There is precedent for it, as well- T’Karian citizens have the right to choose their citizenship, but royals are T’Karian no matter what, unless they choose to leave their position officially, which has only happened once.

And Akiva has something on his side that they do not.

He has Maya, who will fight for him until the lightning dies from her eyes.

He coils his tail around the trunk of a great pine, and folds his wings tightly against his back. As the sun sets on the third day, Akiva Demeru already knows that if it comes to a fight, victory is close at hand.

He roars to the setting sun, wings ablaze with color. Fire dances from his fingertips, and in his eyes, where it swirls with the same kind of green that flickers in those of his family.

He roars in challenge to any that would dare oppose him. Akiva Demeru is a General, a legend in a certain sort of way, and any who try to hurt his family again will be laughably outmatched.

Far away in Egypt, in the middle of the night, a rat that is not a rat wakes, with the sinking feeling that someone is dancing upon his grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha RUN PETER RUN THEY'RE GONNA GET YOU
> 
> but seriously. i made the dragon-comparison earlier on in this fic, but T'Karians CAN and very much DO roar. It's loud, it's scary, and they rarely do it, unless they're mad enough, but they can roar.
> 
> and they can purr, but that's later.
> 
> but anyways! more plot relevance (pissed off maya equals things moving in the political sphere)
> 
> anyways. ian is a little weird in this fic, but he's 100% A Dad to cass and ari here, which I think is Good


	6. fwoosh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we see Ron, Hermione, and Albus Dumbledore (who aren't the worst people here, thankfully), and the secret that isn't a secret begins to leak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we have two more demerus in this chapter: Ezra and Naftali, Maya's sister's sons. As Maya's sister Rifka is very close to Akiva, they will call him uncle when they address him.

Ron Weasley has always been, surprisingly to those who do not know him, brilliant.

Oh, he doesn’t do well in school, sure, but he’s  _ bored _ so often that he really can’t- school is boring. How the teachers teach things is boring. Ron Weasley learns more in middle-of-the-night study sessions with Ari and ‘Mione than he ever has in a classroom.

Ron Weasley  _ knows _ that something is not right with Ari.

Well, not right in a  _ bad _ way. It was like that for a little while, sure (though his Mum wouldn’t let him go looking for her, saying that he couldn’t bother her muggle family again, even through Ron’s insistence that something was Not Right), but now it doesn’t feel nearly as urgent.

‘Mione calls him on a payphone by his family’s hotel when she receives his letter, and they agree it’s probably best at this point to go looking for their Third.

But Ron doesn’t have the car, or even particularly good Floo powder, and as such, he’s stuck where he is until he gets back to England and they can plan in earnest.

That, of course, is why, despite the fact that Ron is plenty smart on his own, Hermione is the one who is in charge of planning things.

-

Hermione Granger is a tired, tired child.

She  _ knows _ it’s not her job to make sure her friend is safe, and frankly? Hermione does not give one  _ singular _ shit. It’s  _ also _ not her job to navigate traps, play Deadly Chess For The Fate Of The World, or figure out what monster lurks in the pipes of her fucking  _ school. _

If she can do all of  _ those _ things, she has a right to figure out how one of her two closest friends in the whole world is doing.

She sits by the river, smiles at Hedwig, who is nestled in a tree nearby, and slowly grows more agitated as she reads the letter over again. She doesn’t even notice how the water reacts to her until it takes her over.

Hermione raises her head to the sky, and feels the whisper of the water around herself. She breathes, and the river breathes with her, swelling its banks.

Her eyes glow, her hands dig into the wet soil and radiate teal light.

Just as suddenly as it arrives, the light leaves. Hermione gasps for air, and watches as the water of the river, once choked with algae, flows cleanly. She can see fish, and the plants reaching up to the surface in search of light.

Hermione dips her hand into the river, now fast-flowing again, and looks upstream, and downstream. It is the same all along.

The river is clean again.

Hermione sits back, and takes a sharp breath.

She knows she is powerful, sure, but not anywhere near  _ that _ strong.

Hermione Granger will have to re-estimate a great many things about herself.

But for now, like when she was a little girl, she plays in the river, and, like when she was a little girl, she plays by herself.

-

Albus Dumbledore sits back in his tall chair and places his head in his hands.

It is not for plans gone awry, or machinations that he must scrap. Albus Dumbledore is a manipulator, yes, but he is still a man.

Albus Dumbledore weeps for the oncoming storm, weeps for his own short-sightedness and his refusal to acknowledge the fact that maybe, just maybe, he should have taken a closer look into Lily Evans’s family tree.

He is not saddened, per se- it is joyful to see one of his favorite students safe, happy, even if such tragedy has to come before it.

Albus Dumbledore knows of the oncoming storm, however. And he knows, quite well, that he will have to be the one to meet it, to prevent the razing of wizarding Britain, possibly for good.

And as Headmaster Dumbledore dodges the flurry of Ministry owls, he is struck by the revelation that maybe, just maybe, that razing is not something bad at all.

-

Cassius nudges Ari, who lets out an annoyed whuffing noise. They all know she knows she probably shouldn't try shifting into other things until someone else whose magic follows the same rules is there to watch her, but she has shifted nonetheless. The great cat curls up on the couch with an amused smile.

Ian rolls his eyes and changes the channel, to the displeasure, then excitement of the wolf and the leopard.

The werewolf knows well that both of them cannot deal with any triggers at the moment, and a relatively pressure-free baking competition means that likely the worst will be (from what Ian has seen, at least), him complaining that the judges have no experience with a particular dish, Cassius agreeing with him, and Ari’s pained groan when someone makes a stupid mistake on a well-known dish during the technical.

It's this easy, relaxed environment that allows Ian to study his new houseguest more thoroughly.

Ari reminds him painfully of a young Cassius, back when Ian had first met him- someone brilliant enough to be graduating college in their teens, with enough drama and skeletons in the closet for a good, old fashioned soap opera.

She's skittish, but in a different way than Cassius had been. Ian gets the feeling that she doesn't like her previous (hopefully, if the Demerus come through) guardians. That's one thing Ian is a little grateful for, at least- he knows for a fact that it's easier to break through conditioning when it comes from someone whose judgement one doesn't trust.

Cass slinks over to Ian with a gentle, sad look on his lupine face. Ian rubs his ears, and smiles. The Moondancer shifts back to human, and settles himself on the arm of the couch closest to Ian.

“She's doing alright,” Cass whispers, eyes aglow with green the way they are when he dips into someone's mind. Ian nods.

There's a confused noise from the opposite side of the couch. Cass looks up, concerned, then smiles gently. Thick fur has given way to feathers, and the T’karian fledgeling coils around herself tighter.

“Have you heard from Akiva?” Ian asks. Cass nods.

“His cousin’s pissed. This is the kind of thing that violates some pretty old treaties, and Her Majesty enforced most of those treaties herself. There’s whispers going around that she’s angry enough to take up the sword again and do the hacking herself, you know?” he replies.

“Whispers from who? Kiv?” Ian prods. Cass shakes his head.

“He confirmed it, but one of the guards noted that she looked almost apocalyptic. They don’t know what for yet, thankfully,” he says under his breath, gesturing towards Ari. Her ear twitches, but she remains still, for the most part.

“So, who are they?” Ian hums. Cass rolls his eyes.

“I got this from Akiva, Ian. You’re not getting a super-secret-source for the rookies to gossip about,” he retorts. Ian sighs overdramatically.

There’s a sniffling sound from Ari, and both of the men look over, concerned. Cass scooches just a bit closer, and then there is a rope of fluff and feathers around his arms.

Ian smiles fondly. Maybe, just maybe, it can work.

-

Ezra and Naftali are curious.

They are the closest of the family to Akiva when one considers only distance, and they are certainly close enough to feel, along the spider-web of vibrations, the rage that their cousin-uncle feels.

Ezra Demeru, being just barely grown, is quite impulsive, even for a T’karian. Therefore, it is not a surprise when he goes to search for the source of his cousin’s anger.

It is more of a surprise (but not much of one, because while Naftali is less impulsive than his brother, it is not by any significant margin) when Naftali joins him.

The younger of the two is a faster flier, and makes better time as he winds through the trees and buildings near Akiva’s territory. Ezra flickers over the water, feathers so close they skim the surface on occasion, and lets out a long, high call.

His cousins answer. Akiva’s is curious and welcoming, while Miriam and Hadassah chirp excitedly in reply. Hadassah meets him by the water, watching him curiously as Ezra spins up into the trees. Water and crusted salt from a long flight over the sea make his wings glitter like they’re covered in jewels. Ezra, as he settles in, begins to preen. Naftali settles in higher on the tree, but not so high that the thin pine bends under his weight.

“Long time, no see,” Ezra chirps to his younger cousins, and smiles as they launch into an excited babbling session. He remembers how startlingly young the two of them are- as half-humans, they may have aged much faster than he has, but they’re still little, by anyone’s standards.

“And now you know how I feel,” Naftali calls from above. Ezra chuckles.

_ Must you do that? _ he asks. There’s a purring laugh from above, along with a chirp of affirmation. Hadassah and Miriam copy their movements.

Ezra, finished preening, launches himself to a tree a good distance away, and glides only partially, like he had when he was still young and couldn’t fly, but far more cramped- his wings have grown since he was a nestling. He directs his ears backwards to listen to the little ones.

“Oh, we forgot to tell Ari about this part,” Miriam whispers. Ezra frowns, and almost misses the tree.

Hadassah chirps amusedly. Ezra shakes his head and digs his claws into the bark, turning to face them.

“Miriam,” he says calmly, and confusedly, “who is Ari?”

-

While Ezra speaks with their cousins, Naftali flies off to find Akiva.

Unlike his brother, whose wings are long and wide, Naftali can fly easily through the trees, only stopping to tree-hop when the forest grows too close for even his own flight.

He makes good time. He can smell the fires of the little sanctuary far before he sees them, even with his own sharp eyes. He leaps to the next tree, and lands almost silently. The sturdy branch doesn’t even bend beneath his incredibly lightweight feet.

Naftali coils his tail around the branch, and waits. He will continue to wait until someone comes to him.

He’d rather not leave the barrier compromised.

He chirps, once, startling a goshawk that at first tries to pick a fight, then notes his claws, and reconsiders. It settles onto a branch beside him. Naftali, for not the first time, compares his own wings to this bird’s- both tapered, but not as much so as their quick-diving cousins, though his own are closer than the bird’s.

The goshawk, with its deep red eyes, pays him little mind, going back to preening its wings. Naftali does the same, cleaning the long silver, blue, and green feathers with care. There is a collection of pine needles in his right wing from where he misjudged the position of a branch, and tree sap in his claws.

It is a long while before he hears a familiar voice on the ground. Avalanche winds her long, massive, silver fluff-and-scales body through the trees, stretching her neck so her eyes are level with Naftali’s own. Her claws dig into the goshawk’s tree, and it screeches irritably at her.

Naftali shrugs, and leaps, landing in her cluster of horns like a lemur, carefully avoiding the most prominent spikes and the long row of spines along her back. Despite the both of them sharing the trait of hollow bones, Naftali’s miniscule weight is nothing in comparison to Avalanche’s bulk in her draconic form, like a more drastic version of a child on their parent’s shoulders. Avalanche begins to move, and Naftali settles in comfortably.

He leaps off again once the trees have given way to the clearing, and chirps his approval, circling up higher and higher before finally returning to the earth.

Akiva flares his wings in greeting as Naftali touches down, and the younger grins, flashing his fangs, and responds by flaring his own, lighting up the more unique spot-patterns that identify Naftali as himself.

The older Demeru smiles, and gestures for Naftali to sit. There is a ripple in the air, and Naftali’s brother, along with Hadassah and Miriam, circle down to land.

Ezra bounds over to them almost frantically, before running clawed hands through his hair. The third-youngest of the now five-strong group of T’karians slumps, and turns to Akiva.

“We, Uncle,” he begins, voice hoarse, “have a lot to talk about.”

Akiva nods, looks around cautiously, and, with flickering light dancing across his feathers and across his skin, begins to tell the tale of Ariela Potter (or, as he has begun to call her, for her family is royalty and to forget that is an insult- Ariela Demeru).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the secret is (sorta) out! more and more demerus will show up scattered throughout future chapters, most notably Neviah and Talia, then a lot of Maya herself again as the political aspects pick up.  
> avalanche is in possession of The Floof  
> anyways ezra, naftali, akiva, miriam, hadassah, and now Ari are really the only in-country Demerus. There are a handful more T'karians, though.  
> and yes! the Demerus are the T'karian royal family. The Queenship basically goes as follows: the crown princess is elected by popular vote from the princesses who are a. of age (1100-1200 years or relative equivalent), and b. follow the requirements for any government official. Once they become Queen, they are part of the decision-making process and have a veto equivalent to that of the PM/president equivalent, aka the Zeve'enet. The Queen's official title is the T'seni, but it's easier to just call her the queen.
> 
> anyways THAT's a pretty basic explanation of t'karian politics but basically: the Queen has moderate political power. she does, in fact, use it.


	7. royalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassius Blackwood stumbles into his tiny living room at three in the morning, shaking off a hard night’s sleep. He blinks himself awake, and finds a sword at his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has a LOT of demerus. also ft. the Demeru Family Gossip Ring and Dear G-d, Ezra Cannot Keep A Secret. pronunciation for a certain name for those who cannot pronounce it is in the endnotes.

Cassius Blackwood stumbles into his tiny living room at three in the morning, shaking off a hard night’s sleep. He blinks himself awake, and finds a sword at his throat.

Well, it isn’t really a sword. It’s a hyper-compressed feather, made strong and less brittle by ways of magic, magic that Cassius will never understand, and will likely never accomplish. T’karian magic is different from Moondancer magic, after all, even though they are both shapeshifters.

The person holding the sword is much taller than Cassius- as many T’karians are- and sports the same green eyes that Cassius has been seeing a surprisingly often as of late.

Cassius blinks, and yawns, stretching out a hand in greeting. The sword wavers, and then drops. A hand, tentative and tipped with sharp claws that are rapidly shrinking to be smaller and more manageable, grasps his own outstretched one.

“Sorry about that,” the other whispers, tilting her ears and flicking her tail sheepishly. Cassius simply sighs.

“It’s alright. I was honestly expecting it, at this point. Now which one are you?” he asks softly. She ducks her head again.

“Ah. My name is- fuck, how would I say that in English-” she begins, and Cassius smiles softly.

“You don’t have to anglicize your name in this place, whether ours are or no. We’ll be able to pronounce it,” he says gently. The T’karian’s shoulders sag in relief.

“Oh, thank the Nine. My name is Kviziach, call me Kvi if it’s too difficult,” she replies, fiddling with her wings anxiously. Cassius puts a finger to his lips, gesturing to the softly snoring bundle of feathers on the futon in the other room.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kviziach. I’m sorry for startling you. You can call me Cassius, or Cass if you like,” he hums under his breath. She nods, gently, taking a molted down feather in her hand and slowly destroying it.

“I’m sorry, I just heard from Firel and he heard from Neviah and  _ she _ heard from Ezra’s boyfriend, who heard from Ezra, who heard it from Akiva, and I’m so, so sorry for breaking and entering  _ please _ don’t be mad at me-” she babbles. Cassius realizes that she, though likely centuries older than himself, is barely a year or two in development ahead of Ari- a child, maybe a teenager. Bold enough to break into a Moondancer’s apartment, young enough to be nervous and apologetic when caught.

“C’ss’s?” a sleepy voice mumbles from the other room, and Kvisiach and Cassius look at each other frantically. Kviziach’s shape quickly fades from view, copying the geometric backgrounds of Cassius’s kitchen tile.

_ ‘Oh, great. They can turn invisible.’ _ he thinks. As Ari stumbles into the kitchen, as sleepy as one would expect for a child at three in the morning, her face scrunches up, confused.

_ Who’s there? _ she asks with her spots. Cassius snorts.

“One of your Demeru cousins, apparently. Kvisiach, please don’t try to sneak out, I may not be able to see you, but I’m not deaf,” he calls. Kvisiach grumbles, but color slowly fades back into her body, starting with the startling pale powder-blue of her wing down and ending with the individual shades of her eyespots.

Ari tilts her head curiously, notes the green eyes, and nods.

“Who told you?” she asks. Kvisiach groans.

“There’s a bit of a gossip ring going on in this family, Ari. Ezra found out on accident from Miriam and Hadassah, then made the mistake of telling his boyfriend. They were talking when Neviah overheard it, and went to Firel, my brother. And of course, because he’s my brother, I heard about it immediately, and me being me, I figured I had to check on you,” she says sheepishly. Ari’s eyes light up at the term ‘gossip ring’ and she begins to giggle.

Kvisiach smiles. Cassius rolls his eyes and begins making himself a few cups of coffee. He’s not going back to bed anytime soon.

-

There’s another child with bright green eyes at his apartment the following morning (though thankfully, this one knocked), after Kvi has already left for T’kari with a spring back in her step. Cassius sighs, turns, and calls for Ari.

The young boy manages to slip under his arm and into the living room by the time Cassius turns around, and is met with Ian, who looks directly at Cassius and rolls his eyes.

The young boy turns out to be not so young at all, and a political nightmare in a relatively small body (even though he’s taller than Ari and probably also Cassius. Because of  _ course _ he is, because T’karians are almost all tall).

Cassius knows this the second the child announces his name, because he’s paid attention to who’s who in that particular family. So, when he says his name is Matisyahu Demeru (but just call him Matt, because Matisyahu is a mouthful of a name), his heart jumps into his throat.

“And you came here without guards?” he asks cautiously. Matt shakes his head, and gestures to the ceiling. There is a swirl of golden and black feathers, and Cassius finds himself staring into a pair of expressive eyes the color of polished obsidian.

“Hello,” he ventures. The guard snorts, and camouflages herself again. The son of the Queen of T’kari completely ignores this of course, and continues to prattle on about many things and absolutely nothing at all. Matt is at the apartment only for a short visit, barely twenty minutes, but Ari is absolutely fascinated by the things he has said. The child is clearly an information treasure trove, and his descriptions are fantastic.

He leaves with a smile, and Ari waves goodbye, like she had with Kvisiach.

-

Cassius opens his door to a redheaded boy and a curly-haired girl, and stares at them curiously. Both are clearly not Demerus, but he feels as if he should recognize them.

There is an excited squeal from behind him, and Cassius steps aside.

Notably lacking her wings and tail, Ari slams into the boy and girl, clambering over their shoulders and hugging them tightly.

Cassius gestures for them to sit down, once they find themselves in the apartment. He then passses them each water bottles, calls for Ian, and, once the werewolf arrives in the living room, activates the portkeys.

A bit over the top, he knows, and maybe not the best idea considering the greenish tint to Ron (as he has learned the boy is named)’s face and the queasy look to Hermione’s.

No matter. He dodges passerby with ease, makes sure that both Ron and Hermione are equipped with visitor badges, and, like most days lately, marches to the BAU bullpen.

“May I speak with Greenaway for a moment if she can, please?” he asks chipperly, bouncing on his heels, then considers it more, “and Hotch, if you can spare him at the moment.”

All of them turn to him with surprised expressions. Cassius gestures towards the children.

“We have two more, now let’s discuss political ramifications before they bite us, yeah?”

There is a chorus of nods.

-

Akiva joins them within the hour, though without the two little ones, who have stayed behind with Naftali.

Ari looks to him with a bright smile upon her face. He greets her warmly, though it looks to Cassius like he wishes to say something with his spots that would not translate into English. 

Hermione narrows her eyes.

It is Ron who speaks.

“You don’t need to hide from us, Ari,” he says gently. Ari takes a shuddering breath.

It’s quite possibly the most dramatic transformation Cassius has seen from her yet. Her wings burst into existence, her fingers and the claws attached to them lengthen, and she grows taller, though not by much, as her weight shifts from her whole foot to walking on only the pads.

She beats her wings once, for emphasis. Akiva quickly follows her lead, staying to the side.

His wings are like the flare of a fire, thinly tapered like a flickering flame, though he keeps his feathers held close to himself. He sits back down with all of his usual grace, like a coiled serpent or a resting tiger.

Cassius knows that  _ Akiva _ knows he is an apex predator, unchallenged in this little room. How the next few minutes will go all depends on the reactions of the two children to what has become of their friend.

Cassius holds his breath. Spencer gives him an odd look, and Cassius gestures sharply at Akiva, who rests vivid, piercing eyes on the young man.

Thankfully, Ron and Hermione live up to what Ari has told him about them. They ooh and ah over Ari’s wings, of course, but almost immediately, they get right back down to business, with Ron  _ occasionally _ butting in to ask all sorts of questions about what flying on one’s own is like.

Ari laughs, and says that it is amazing- the most freeing thing she has ever felt. Akiva, smiling good-naturedly now, offers to tell them all about when he has spent weeks at a time on the wing, to the fascinated gasps of all three children.

His tail, as always, is curled in over itself, away from those it could do harm to. Ari copies this, though fiddles with the feathers on occasion.

Spencer locks eyes with Ari. Cassius can see the silent agreement from where he is sitting, when both parties decide that it will be best if everyone in this little circle on the floor, shielded from the outside by Cassius and Akiva’s illusions, know  _ everything _ .

Ari begins the tale.

As he feels her fear begin to rise, Cassius sees lightning spark across her fingertips.

-

The gossip ring has done its duty, what she had designed it for when she was only a little girl, tired of incomplete messages and rumors.

While the name suggests something simple, innocent- only childish gossip being traded between siblings, cousins, in-laws, the truth is, it is something far more real.

It is her intelligence ring. While it may be filled with the day-to-days, simple things, the gossip ring alerts her of possible crises before they may happen- political nightmares, and what could become them.

She hears of the child from Neviah, and her safety from Kvisiach. To make sure of her sources, Matisyahu had confirmed it as well.

Her cousin, whoever’s daughter she may be, is safe, now. There are none who can harm her until the summer dies, and she must be shipped off into harm’s way again. And, to deal with that particular issue, she has a plan. A brilliant, possibly diabolical, probably illegal plan.

Because she has a plan.

Because Talia Demeru, Crown Princess of T’kari and head of one of the most successful unofficial intelligence committees in T’kari at barely twelve hundred and thirty-seven, always,  _ always _ has a plan.

-

Hermione Granger watches the sky darken with apprehension. The three of them are united again, yes. She sees Ari’s silhouette against the clouds, hears the whistling noise of wings on feathers.

Like before, in the river, the water swirls around her hands, and into the sky, glowing in shades of blue and green. The water makes Hermione look like a lantern in the middle of the night, a glowing beacon to all who see her.

The silhouette drops. The whistling sound grows louder, louder,  _ louder, _ like the wind on the wings of an aircraft just before liftoff.

Ari banks before she hits the ground, going from over a hundred miles an hour to nothing in less than a second. She hovers just above the ground, keeping altitude with long, wide strokes of her wings, that disturb the air around her and make the trees shiver.

Green eyes lock with deep brown, both as clear as a glass-clear pool or a polished crystal. Lightning sparks along the water, bouncing back towards the one in the air, swirling around the one on the ground.

The power that swirls in both girls flickers and dances along the boundary, testing the opposite, finding compatibility in every regard. The water, wind, and lightning fit together like puzzle pieces in a great game, like they are always meant to be together. The wind moves the water, the water conducts the lightning. They are only missing one, now, their fire, their burning light, and he will come to them, eventually.

The water settles itself back into the lake. The wind calms. Ari lands on the top of a thin pine, the tree bending beneath her.

Beyond them, deep in the clouds, the thunder rumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kvisiach's name is pronounced Kiv-ee-sea-ach. The "ach" is with a bit of a noise in the back of the throat. Or just drop the C, if that helps.  
> Talia is an incredibly competent princess, which is why she's the crown princess. she basically revamped the whole "demeru family gossip ring" into basically her own spy ring without anyone knowing about it, since they all tell the family basically everything. She just set up fact checking everything and reputable sources for the ring, basically.  
> And... yeah. Ari, Hermione, and Ron will basically have a sorta "three person army" thing going on. They're all individually powerhouses, but together they're absolutely ridiculous.


	8. glitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a quiet, while they learn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so: there is some minor "children of loki" thing going on here bc Fenrir is one of Maya's friends and all of my well-developed OC's interact in some way unless they literally can't. Also Hela is in here so... yeah. but hopefully I won't have to rely particularly heavily on him

Ari finds herself in the sanctuary again, come morning.

She can hear Hermione snoring in the room next to her, and Ron in the one after that. Cassius and Ian are also there, though they are both awake and quietly talking politics in the living room.

She slides a wide green eye open, blinking, and yawns widely. She looks up, at the cross-timbering on the ceiling, and gets an odd little smile on her face.

Hermione and Ron wander into her room a little later. Ari chirps a squeaky battle cry, and falls on their shoulders.

Hermione gasps, and begins to laugh. Ron tumbles to the floor and begins to giggle.

Ari hops out of the room and gestures with her tail for them to follow her. Ron crawls up from the floor, and Hermione pauses.

Ari unlatches the front door, and opens it.

Outside, it is chaos.

Well, not really chaos. It is the organized sort of chaos that the Continental’s holdout always is. The sheer magnitude of wolves moving through the place at any given moment, topped off by the wyverns and other tremendous creatures, gives off the aura of disarray at any given moment.

Ari loves it.

It's her kind of chaos. The young wyverns and dragons have challenged her to a few flight competitions since she’s been here, and she's launched into them with joy, flying far faster and turning far sharper than they expect. She sees Dos already up in the clouds, and tracks her rapid movement with wide eyes.

Akiva flickers past in a blur, landing in the treeline, followed by a pair of adult T’karians, one with storm gray-blue and silver wings like Ari herself, and the other with deep blue feathers ringed with green like the blue on a blue ringed octopus.

Ari lifts off and follows them. The blue-feathered young man introduces himself as Ezra, while the one with feathers like a bluer, paler version of her own says that his name is Naftali.

Ezra is content to sleepily coil himself into a nest in the trees, but Naftali, whose eyes are bright and intrigued, follows Ari back down to the ground and introduces himself to Ron and Hermione as well.

The tall, imposing man gently lifts his wings over them when the wind begins to pick up and the rain begins to fall, guiding them towards the largest of the houses.

Ari realizes that the younger man back in the trees is this one’s younger brother, and his wings over their heads in the faint rain is like Fred and George helping her and Ron and Hermione with their luggage, or Charlie taking Norbert to the dragon sanctuary.

Ari is comforted by this.

She doesn’t realize she’s purring contentedly until Naftali is laughing, quietly, and promises to teach them a special type of magic, one he’s sure they don’t know. Hermione squeals excitedly, and Naftali laughs again, louder and brighter, spots trying to say a thousand things at once.

Lightning flickers between his fingers. The storm begins to truly rage outside. Soaked wolves begin to trickle in, Akiva behind them. Ezra continues to dance in the rain.

“Any ways you could make the downpour let up, Tal?” Akiva calls.  Naftali shakes his head.

“Unless you want a drought next summer, or a worse storm next week, changing the weather willy-nilly for things besides minor electrical storms are never a good plan. We dance with the wind and the lightning, the fire and the water, Uncle. We do not claim to hold it back,” he replies warmly.

Ari holds up her own fingers, watches electricity spark through them. She has not noticed that the storm is becoming a true juggernaut outside, and even the strongest of the flyers are seeking shelter.

She looks up to Naftali, tilts her head curiously.

“What was it you said you wanted to teach us?” she asks. Naftali smiles, this time with the hint of fangs, like he is watching a child pick up a weapon for the first time, with the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, it will protect them for a little longer.

“You know how you are taught spells in Latin, maybe old Greek on occasion, correct?” he rumbles.

Hermione takes the lead, and answers in the affirmative.

“Do you know  _ why? _ ” he hums, eyes alight with a strange glow. His energy is barely contained, like the lightning he says he cannot hold, only shape.

“There is no reason for it,” he whispers, whole body taught like a bowstring, ready to burst into action, “beyond simple laziness. Colonization of the Romans, and a desire not to change. And it spread, because Europe, who was colonized by latin-speakers, brought that to the places they went. And so, magic here is spoken in Latin, a now dead language that was not always that way, when it was first put into Magic. And it is here, where you can find an advantage.”

Hermione’s eyes fill with excitement. She pulls a notebook and a pencil from her bag.

“The first lesson, of course, is the longest one. It will span months, interlocking with the later things I shall teach you. The first lesson, is, of course,” he says, tail spinning around them all along the ground like the tail of some magnificent fire-drake, only in miniature, “to learn the language.”

-

To the surprise of absolutely none of those gathered in the hall, the language Naftali chooses, eventually, is his own.

And to the surprise of even fewer people, Ari begins soaking the language up faster than a wet sponge. Oh, it will take months, surely, possibly even a year. For Ron and Hermione, it may take even longer. But what matters is the effort in and of itself, because, as Naftali teaches them, intent is as meaningful as words, and spoken T’karian is not an easy language to learn (unlike the spots, which are essentially instinctual).

She grasps verb tenses and conjugations soon enough, but learns her new, second language like she had her first, only at an accelerated pace- with easy, meaningful words, then the concepts behind them.

Naftali is a gifted linguist, and an expert in weaving magic and words. He teaches them of saying magic inside their heads, or even not saying words at all, and simply focusing on intent.

“The words,” he says, “can direct the magic, can make it safer to use, more efficient. But it does not make or break the spell. Accidental magic is a good example of spell-less magic, which is purely undirected intent. Truly wordless magic is completely different from spell-less magic. In addition, often many scream their spells, in the belief that it makes it stronger, for some reason. Never do this. If you must use a spoken word spell, say the words under your breath.”

They nod.

“Of course, this is most relevant for Ari. From what I've seen, Hermione’s specific form of magic will need to be taught by a friend of an old friend, or at least someone he suggests, and, if my hunch is correct, I'd suggest Ron tries to learn a few things from Avalanche while he’s here, and I will try to contact someone who is more equivalent with his specific form of magic,” he hums. They nod again.

The intent lessons, unsurprisingly, focus mostly on transfiguration. The hyperspecific branch of magic he had mentioned before is tucked away for the time being- he says it is dangerous, not something for children to learn.

Ari asks about it. He replies in turn that if she would like to lose all the carbon in her body, she should try it, but she should probably try to learn more before messing with the very fiber of one’s being.

Ari blanches. She agrees- she would rather  _ not _ learn that and accidentally make everything fall apart.

It is far too soon when Hermione and Ron leave, smuggling books under their clothes. Ari waves them goodbye, and smiles, promising to see them when summer ends.

-

Naftali weaves through the people, careful to keep his well-crafted human guise up, to not extend his wings and fly away.

There is a shimmer in one of the buildings, one only he can pick out. A few teenagers slip through the border before him, and Naftali pauses.

He would rather not disturb their quiet, but he must speak to Fenrir.

The shimmer tests him, and seems him worthy, like the T’karian barriers back home. As it closes behind him, he shrugs off his human guise, and stretches his feathers up into the air.

A few of the children give him odd looks, and Naftali smiles warmly, dipping his head in greeting. He steps through one of the other doorways, and finds himself all the way across the world.

The Asgardian greets him with a smile, warm golden eyes shining in the sun and glittering like amber on gold in this frigid place.

Something cracks beneath the ice. Naftali shivers, and pulls a conjured cloak around his shoulders.

Fenrir laughs.

“What did you wish to speak to me about, young one?” he asks. A penguin toddles behind him. Naftali giggles at the absurdity of it like he had when he was a child. He stands again, and wipes his eyes.

“I need your help, Fen. You have heard of the fledgeling that Akiva is caring for, yes?” he asks.

“I have,” Fenrir says cryptically. Naftali remembers why he does not speak to the man often- when the time allows it, he is fond of being confusing.

“One of her friends, I believe, would do well in training in your form of magic, if you or one you feel could take up the task can spare the time,” he whispers, then remembers who he is speaking to.

“The fledgeling, by the way, has spoken to your sister.”

_ That _ gets the old wolf’s attention. He knows exactly what it means.

“And why, pray tell, if she has seen Hela, is she still here on this planet?” he rumbles. Naftali can feel the probing use of magic, can see the faint gold that swirls around the wolf, testing if he is being truthful.

“She doesn’t know, besides the fact that she’s died once and has now returned,” Naftali says quietly. Fenrir nods, and takes a seat. The ice begins to cool again, reform, beneath his feet.

“Do you have any suspicions?” Fenrir asks him, eyes narrowed. Naftali takes a deep breath.

“I believe something may have used her as a host, from the basic description that Akiva passed on to me of what she told him. She bit its next host, and I believe it may be well and truly dead, along, of course, with the monster of a man it possessed,” he says. Fenrir nods again.

“What is the name of the child you wish taught?” he asks. Naftali’s eyes brighten.

“Her name,” he says softly, “is Hermione Granger.”

-

Hermione is curious.

She steps cautiously around the box in the middle of her room, large enough to carry a whole person if need be. She feels that there must be something inside, something dangerous, and possibly something worth looking into.

Her mum asks what’s in the package she’s received. Hermione calls back that she hasn't opened it yet.

Finally, curiousity wins out over cautiousness. She flips the latches, and places her hand on the box.

It seems to read her (a confirmation that this is likely magic not of Earth) and opens as cautiously as Hermione had been acting only a few minutes earlier.

The box shrinks, to roughly the size of a lunchbox, and expands upwards, compartments rearranging themselves.

Placed forefront are a mirror (though Hermione doubts it is a true mirror, and thinks it must be something more like a gateway) and several heavy books, with names that scramble to turn themselves into English.

The mirror shivers. Hermione stares, mouth agape.

The figure of someone else taps the glass, and waves.

“Hello! Is the sound working, love?” she calls. Hermione nods mutely, then realizes there could be a problem on her end.

“Yes, it is,” she replies. The woman on the other side of the glass gives her a wide, bright smile. Hermione smiles back.

“So! Someone I know was contacted by someone else saying that you needed some very specific tutelage, and that I may be able to help. Could you send a tendril of magic through the mirror, please?” the woman asks. Hermione complies as best she can. The woman frowns in concentration, spinning the magic around her hands like a rope or a piece of cloth.

“Yes,” she says quietly, turning back to Hermione, “I believe I can help you.”

“Before you go,” Hermione whispers, “May I ask who you are?”

The woman laughs, and smiles fondly.

“Of course you may, dearie, though I may not tell you for a little longer. You may call me what you like until then,” she hums.

“Oh,” Hermione says, “May I call you… huh. Does… never mind.”

“You may call me Jay, if you would like. As in the bird, dear, remember that.”

As Jay leaves the mirror, Hermione wonders if she might be named with the letter in mind after all.

She smiles. At the very least, she has learning to do.

And after that, she has her favorite task- a mystery to unravel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jay is Hermione's non-human magic tutor from now on, since hers is moderately different from Ari and Naftali's. Jay is... moderately deity-esque. Definitely roughly that power level.  
> Ron will end up with one of the Special Tutors (because Naftali is correct in his hunch).  
> Aaaand... the cool stuff is here! Living-language magic, basic wordless, and focus on intent! And the terrifying element magic!  
> (Fun fact: Naftali is a biochemist)


	9. eyeshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer is ending. Ari is not happy about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "eyeshine" is the phenomenon when animals that are active during the night have a reflective piece in the back of their eyes that lets them see better in the dark.

Ari knows she has to go back to Britain. She knows. She doesn’t like it, of course, but she  _ knows _ .

The summer is drawing to a close, and no matter how tightly she clings to the family she’s found, she will have to leave it for quite the time.

She cries into Dos’s wings for a day, and when she lifts her head, finds herself surrounded by everyone’s feathers. Akiva takes her aside, after, and hashes out a plan.

First, she will need to brief everyone in her dorm, and possibly their siblings on top of that. She will need people she can trust around her, beyond her own circle of friends.

“So. Who is in your dorm, besides Hermione?” he asks. Ari blinks, tail flicking behind her like Dos’s does when she wonders about things other than what holds her attention.

“Fay Dunbar, Lavender Brown, and Parvati Patil,” she says easily, “and Ron’s roommates are Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, and Seamus Finnigan. They don’t have a fifth.”

Akiva nods, and takes a seat gracefully. Ari follows suit, though with notably less elegance. She readjusts her wings so the feathers won’t scrape the ground.

“What can you tell me about them?” Akiva asks. Ari frowns.

“Parvati and Lavender are gossips, and classic “girly” girls, but they’re actually quite nice and friendly, once you get to know them. They’re loyal to a fault if you give them reason to be. You should have seen the fuss they kicked up when people thought I was the Heir of Slytherin last year. And Fay Dunbar is incredibly sweet, though she can pack a punch. She socked Ernie MacMillan in the jaw in first year,” Ari says fondly. Akiva smiles.

“It looks like you won’t have too much trouble with them. Do you think they’d keep your secret?” Akiva asks. Ari nods firmly, then considers it.

“Parvati has a twin sister, in Ravenclaw, her name is Padma. If I can get the both of them to keep quiet, we’re golden,” she replies. Akiva nods.

“Do try to ease them into it. If they seem… on edge about it, feel free to call us. We know more than our fair share of telepaths,” he hums.

-

Hermione blinks at the clue. Alatina Alata is a type of  _ jellyfish.  _ Specifically, it's a box jellyfish.

“I assume that's what the Jay is for,” she says dryly (hah!). She cocks her head and stares at the woman, who grins back.

“Exactly. Now, of course, you have to wait longer or try to Rumplestiltskin your way into getting my name. Your next clue, of course, is one-sixth and a man ten thousandfold,” Jay chirps.

Hermione stares at her, dumbfounded.

“Or I could teach you how to get electronics to charge themselves at Hogwarts,” she offers. Hermione’s eyes go wide. Her grin is enormous.

Jay fends off a hundred thousand questions with a warm, happy laugh. Her hair sways in the water, like the kelp behind her. A jellyfish drifts past, and just like that, Hermione laughs too.

“Alright. The first thing you need to do, love, is learn how to draw and power a lightning array,” she says warmly, and, with a flick of her hands, the design in question is displayed upon the mirror. Hermione copies it down to the smallest detail.

“I would suggest, if you can, getting it engraved into your belongings. If you'd rather not, I have a few suggestions,” she says. Hermione nods.

“One- apply a lightning rune to any device of yours that recharges those rechargeable batteries. Two- if you can, set up a router. I would assume overcharge up there is ridiculous,” Jay says.

“Wait. Aren't you going to tell me how to get these past the wards of Hogwarts?” she asks. Jay shakes her head.

“Funny story, actually, but they'll work fine. The only problem with bringing electronics into Hogwarts is that it's a several hundred year old castle and has corresponding electricity wiring, which is absolutely none. The only reason the bloody death trap has even  _ plumbing _ is because it was either rip everything up and not get cholera, or, ahem,  _ get cholera.  _ If I remember correctly, the whole thing was pulled together by Magnus Gaunt- a nice fellow, though his descendants were more than a little off. That's what you get for inbreeding, I suppose,” Jay says, and Hermione is struck by both how much her teacher rambles and how old she likely is.

“So. Lightning magic and internet, then?” she asks. Jay nods.

“I would suggest getting your friend to charge the array when you can. Your magic, like my own, is more attuned to Water, while hers, from what I've heard, is quite literal perfection for this sort of thing,” she hums.

Hermione grins, and begins with the barrage of questions again.

-

Ari pops her jaw as she yawns like a big cat, extending long fangs. She is in Cassius and Ian’s apartment again- figuring that it will be an easier transition to go back to Britain with someone else who has also been to Hogwarts and knows the basic layout of Diagon.

The Moondancer in question is prepared for a long-haul sort of flight, as is Ian, who hasn't really ever been to Britain for very long, but whose presence is required because without it, Cassius would likely fall to pieces.

London is full of people. That makes it inherently telepath-unfriendly.

The plan, essentially, is to pick up everything (hopefully Hedwig won't be too angry with her) from the Dursleys or wherever they've ended up via intimidation (an extra reason Ian is coming with them), then call the Knight Bus for Ari and let everything sort itself out from there.

It's mostly her earlier schoolbooks that Ari is worried about, though they can be replaced. She's glad she had the foresight to bring her Invisibility Cloak and her parent’s photos with her to America (and her more current schoolbooks and homework, hidden back in the hotel, though they matter infinitely less), as those are the only thing in her trunk she'd be inconsolable to lose.

Naftali, sitting with her in the middle of the room, looks at his phone and frowns.

“Do you know how to do a Guardian Charm?” he asks. Ari shakes her head.

“It's wanded magic, nestling. It's called the Patronus Charm in Latinized nations. It produces a magical guardian. Aviv just texted me, says you should probably know it,” he says. Ari blinks, but pulls her wand out.

“How do I cast it?” she asks.

“Circular wand movement. The most sensible words for you to use would be Expecto Patronum- I await or expect a guardian in English- but, can you tell me what that would be in T’karian?” he pries. Ari scrunches her nose in thought.

“Keva’arat T’mai,” she says quietly.

“It's actually Keva’ari, as it’s first-person singular, but good try. Anyways, I would suggest nailing down the Latin version first, so you can use it more easily during the school year. The spell requires a fond memory- a  _ very _ fond memory. You must bring it to the front of your mind as you cast the spell,” he says.

“My memory of choice as of late was my first successful case with Ian,” Cass calls from the other side of the room.

“Don't try to be cute with us, we all know it's the first time you went on Lactaid and drank an entire tub of melted ice cream,” Ian snaps back.

“Don't listen to him, he slanders,” Cass hums, plopping himself unceremoniously down on the couch.

Ari frowns, and tries to think of a happy memory. Her early years won't work at all. Really the only time she's been happy is-

Ari’s eyes fill just a little with tears as she thinks of Akiva, who protects her like one of his own daughters, of her new, chaotic extended family, with their enormous personalities and anxious fidgeting. Of Naftali, her  _ cousin,  _ sitting here on a couch with her in the middle of Virginia teaching her magic.

Of Cassius and Ian, who have been nothing but kind and gentle, who have accommodated her through nightmares and have woken up at midnight for hot chocolate and a strange sort of therapy.

Of Dos and Mir, who taught her how to fly.

Of Hermione and Ron- her first friends, her  _ best  _ friends, who  _ traveled across an ocean by themselves _ to make sure she was safe.

And of now, when Ari finally,  _ finally _ realizes that  _ she is loved. _

-

Ariela Potter (or maybe Demeru, depending on who is asked) casts a corporeal Patronus only about a dozen and a half tries after this realization.

It is a beautiful thing, though Ari has absolutely no idea what it is. It plays with Ian and Cassius’s patronuses, which Ari has a better grip on.

Ian’s Patronus is absolutely expected of the sniper and tracker. It is a wolf- a proud, enormous wolf, though Ari is amused to note that instead of Ian’s heavy build and more discrete patterning, this wolf is relatively lanky and has a rather distinctive dark stripe down its spine.

Cassius’s is harder to recognize- she doesn't  _ quite _ know what it is- but it's still identifiable. It is a massive bird with a flinty look to its eyes. It has an odd sort of crest around its head, and is clearly a vain sort of creature, because once it determines that there is no danger, it hops over to Cassius and begins preening itself.

Ari thinks its an eagle, but she's not quite sure. She wonders if the bird represents Ian, because that would be interesting.

Her own Patronus, on the other hand, is infinitely larger than either of the others’. It is dark in color- that much she can tell- with a white underbelly and thick white spots from time to time. She thinks she's seen it before, but she doesn't quite know what it is. It easily spans the size of the apartment, and Ari feels a little sorry for it.

The tremendous beast makes an intrigued clicking sound. Echolocation.

“Your Patronus is an orca. Alright then,” Naftali hums, a gentle smile on his face. Ari turns to him, confused.

“Ah, orcas are wonderful. Some people call them the wolves of the sea. They're resourceful, smart, sure, but they're compassionate to a fault, and I've never heard of a wild one killing a human. They're curious creatures. I'll have to introduce you to some of the Southern Residents next summer- there's an oceanic mammalian mer pod nearby, they're quite friendly and like visitors so long as they leave the drag nets out of the water,” he clarifies. Ari is more confused.

“Never mind, it’s a good Patronus, nestling,” he says, and casts the spell himself, though this time in T’karian. A relatively small (at least compared to the orca) animal appears, flickering silver across the room.

It is a relatively small dragon, Ari sees, or so it would seem. The creature is roughly the size of a small bird, with coloring that's likely not much more decorative than the silver allows it.

It spreads frost along the ground, and a flicker of lightning.

“Polar Kilakaid,” he explains, “they're native to home.”

They all watch as their patronuses dance around the room, watch until the birds, wolves, dolphins and dragons fade away, deciding that they are not needed.

Ari will think of a name for her Patronus later.

Right now, she needs a nap.

-

The plane ride home is roughly uneventful. Ari keeps herself awake with copious amounts of caffeine and sugar, and, through the vibrations, maintains hold on her human-shape. She’s in the window seat, next to Cassius, who keeps his shoulders pressed to Ian’s. This has the welcome side affect of doubling Ari’s armspace. She’s re-read at least three of her textbooks (jacketed in a completely different book, of course), and makes eye-contact with a young girl who’s about as buzzed as she is.

“I can’t sleep on planes,” the girl whispers. Someone in the aisle behind Ari makes a shushing noise.

“This is my second time on one,” Ari admits. The girl’s eyes widen, and she begins to chatter under her breath. Ari spends the rest of the eight hour flight making funny faces and laughing as quietly as she can.

She doesn't notice Ian’s gentle smile, or Cass’s quiet giggles.

-

Ari is coiled around a trunk of a tree, Hedwig beside her (the owl had chattered irritably for a while, but had settled down and was now preening her own and Ari’s feathers happily). She is near-invisible, the only signs of her presence being her vivid green eyes, like those of the Cheshire Cat.

Her trunk is shrunken and in her bag. She waits, quietly, for a good time to call the Knight Bus.

There is a dog that is not a dog waiting below her, looking around confusedly. Ari frowns, and shrugs her shoulders. She looks to Hedwig, and nods.

Ari begins springing from tree to tree, like she's seen her cousins do. She waits until she's gotten a fair distance away from the dog that is not a dog, and lifts off.

She will summon the Knight Bus from London. Or maybe, she won't summon it at all.

She grins, all teeth, and flies to Heathrow. She hears Cass’s confusion in the back of her head, and tells him of her plan.

Confusion turns to approval.

Ari summons the Knight Bus from Heathrow. She gives her real name while wearing her old face. She watches as the driver and the greeter fall over themselves in shock.

She makes herself look confused where she can, speaks of falsehoods as to why she was in America for months on end. Well, not complete falsehoods, but lies all the same.

They take it hook, line, and sinker.

Akiva would be proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T'karians can turn entirely "invisible" (really it's just hypersensitive camouflage), but only when they close their eyes. Most don't bother developing this skill at all, actually, because their eyes are their best sense and it's like us walking around with a blindfold- it's usually more trouble than it's worth- but blind t'karians and those who bother to train with blindfolds and the like are fully capable of it.  
> ari just went "invisibility in more ways than one? COOL" and that's why she can do it. because she bugged people who have been training for Literally Forever.


	10. flicker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ari finds herself suppressing the urge to fly away- far away- more often than not, now. It is only a sense of duty and the sounds of Hermione and Ron sleeping only a few rooms away that keep her grounded.  
> -  
> (or: ari's in Diagon Alley now, and preparing for the school year)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor continuity edits for this one and generally not much plot relevance but at least it's Done

Ari manages to hold on to her shape until she is in the bathroom of her room in the Leaky Cauldron. She sits down in the tub, closes the curtains, and breathes.

She can't let any of them see her- not yet. If they know what she is now, the whole Plan will be ruined.

She grips her tail in her teeth and mantles her wings over her head, and tries not to panic.

Her true form fades away like the last traces of light after sunset, and she slides out of the bathtub, miserably confronting the enchanted mirror as she flops down onto her bed.

“What's wrong, dear?” the mirror asks.

“I don't  _ know!” _ Ari cries out, and coils around herself in a heap. She manages to wiggle under the covers in time to stop herself from transforming back, but it's  _ hard.  _ This shape just isn't  _ right, _ and Ari will have to keep the transformation up for most hours of the day- not the scattered shifts of the summer.

She takes another shaking breath, and closes the curtains around her.

It's going to be a long four months.

-

She wants to coil around Ron and Hermione, shroud them in her wings and hiss and spit at anyone who dares try to take them from her, but settles for a hug instead.

They have to act like they haven't seen each other since the beginning of summer, but soon enough, Hermione drags the both of them into the streets of London for a “muggle supplies shopping trip”, and immediately sits them down on a bench off the side of the road.

“So. What is the plan?” she whispers, casting her eyes around cautiously.

“We let the girls in our dorm in on it. Not all of it- not the kidnapping by a crazed murderer at the start of summer thing, definitely, but the not-human thing is going to have to work. Do you have the memory erasure potions that you said you'd made?” Ari hisses. She frowns, looks around, and drags them into the bushes, and covers them all with her wings. Her spots glow on the interior, but the outside quickly matches her surroundings.

“Wicked,” Ron says, and Ari smiles.

“Yes, I have the potions,” Hermione whispers, “and Jay- my tutor- taught me how to make a lightning array so we can get our devices to charge at Hogwarts, in case we have to call someone. It works so far, as does the portable router I set up, though it is slightly more efficient to just borrow off of the neighbor’s.”

Ari giggles under her breath, then frowns.

“Ron, do you have-”

“No, Ari, I do not have a phone,” he replies with a deadpan expression.

“Oh. All-magic family. Right,” she says, scratching the back of her head.

“I think the thing we’ve already been doing with the whole ‘finding a quiet place to talk’ is going to work fine. I mean, if we have to, we could always bodily haul Ron up to our dorm so the stairs don't turn and he can practice magic. Hey Ron, have you found a tutor yet?” Hermione asks.

“Yeah- one of Avalanche’s friends. This big, classic firedrake type dragon named Beryl. She's  _ really good _ at Fire magic,” he says with more than just a hint of awe. Ari smiles even brighter at that.

Ron wiggles out of the bushes first, and wanders into a store. Not long after, Hermione moves into a different store. Ari’s entire form quickly shimmers almost entirely out of view. She rolls behind a tree and flickers back into eyesight in a more human shape, strolling past both shops.

Hermione and Ron hurry out to join her, with minor purchases to cover their tracks in hand. The Leaky Cauldron welcomes them back.

The three of them rush to Ari’s room, Hermione’s lightning array in hand. It isn't needed for Ari- anything of hers is T’karian and given to her by one of her cousins, and it can easily power itself based around her specific brand of magic, but she scratches the design into the metal all the same. Better safe than sorry.

They stay there and whisper long into the night.

-

Ari finds herself suppressing the urge to fly away- far away- more often than not, now. It is only a sense of duty and the sounds of Hermione and Ron sleeping only a few rooms away that keep her grounded.

She knows she could make it. Well, actually, she doesn't. From what Akiva has told her, a flight across the ocean typically will take anywhere between four days and two weeks, depending on the efficiency of which the one making the trip flies, and Ari has no practice flying long stretches over water. On top of that, she has absolutely zero open water fishing experience.

So maybe there are three things keeping her on this side of the ocean.

She will have to ask someone to fly with her back to the States, when the break begins. There is no excuse for never bothering to learn, and she will have to use it eventually.

Ari bites back a sob of frustration as the wind picks up, a cold northern breeze that would serve well for at least flying south, away from here.

Britain has become painful for her, in a way. She feels choked, on a leash.

As she heads back inside, her fingertips brush against the divots her hands have made in the railing.

She smiles sadly, hoping that she won't have to hide her strength, too.

She flops down on the bed, staring at the monster of a book scuttling across the floor.

It growls at her. She growls back, making sure the flicker of lightning at her fingertips isn't within sight of the mirror.

The book lets out a whine, and opens, perfectly docile. Ari laughs just a little, and runs her fingers along the pages. The book purrs happily.

She will have to go to the Alley tomorrow, for all of her supplies. She sets out a few items, more useful birthday gifts from the cousins.

There are earplugs, from Ezra, who often has to work in the city. She's used them before, and they work like a charm, filtering out loud noises that would otherwise send her into a fit. There is also a self repairing stress ball, from Kviziach, which has already been torn up from fingernails transforming into razor sharp claws.

Ari smiles as she runs her hands over them.

She'll need them a lot in the coming months.

-

Diagon Alley is exactly as loud as Ari remembers. She is glad for her earplugs as she ducks into Flourish and Blott’s, hiding a giggle as a particularly rude Ravenclaw ponce is pounced upon by a flurry of the monster-books.

Several, in their cage, turn over and go quiet at her entrance into the bookshop, but it's not enough of them that anyone other than herself would notice.

Ari collects her books, and runs her fingers across the shelves for a few others. She spots a few basic language books and an interesting looking piece of historical fiction that advertises itself as a look into the possible life and times of a young Merlin.

She pops through a few other stores, of course. She chats with the shop owners, as well.

“So, where do you source your ingredients from?” she asks the chipper young apothecary owner, who seems to become even more excited at the question, if that is even possible.

“We’ve started sourcing ingredients that are endangered or threatened in their native habitats- like dragons and certain types of magical lionfish- from areas where they're invasive. It's actually really good for business- Atlantic lionfish are a bargain compared to Indian Ocean lionfish. And we source European dragon horn and scales from Australia and South America, where they have heavily established themselves already,” the young man says. The name on the tag is a bit smudged, but Ari thinks she sees the last name is Scamander, and that explains a lot.

“And dragon heartstrings? Forgive me if you don't know that much about those- I know they're more of a wandmaker thing- but you've been so helpful so I figured I'd ask,” she hums.

  1. Scamander’s sigh is so loud that Ari thinks the young man’s soul has entirely left his body. She rushes to apologize, but he waves her off.



“No, no, it's fine. Ollivander has a very strong affection for certain… nefarious dragon dealers. Unlike the unicorn hair or Phoenix feather cores, or even dragon scales and horns, which are shed annually,” (Ari barely covers her snort at the idea of Avalanche shedding her crown of icicle-like spines) “dragon heartstrings require the active killing of the dragon. Most use previously deceased dragons, since a dragon like the Welsh Green will provide hundreds of wand quality heartstrings by itself, but Ollivander tends to have a taste for the expensive ones. Granddad got in a row about it with him once, actually.”

Ari smiles and laughs. Secretively, she takes one of her earplugs out as she leaves the apothecary- the alley is much less crowded, now.

“Maybe I should reconsider having kids,” Scamander mutters to himself. Ari smiles again, and meanders her way towards the Leaky Cauldron.

-

She frowns as she enters the room. Hermione’s new cat sits proudly on the end of her bed, but there is a peculiar twinkle to its eyes that is not normal for a cat.

And Persians are supposed to be the  _ dumbest cats of all time. _ Crookshanks may be a doll face Persian rather than the complete squash that Ari thought of him at first, but doll face Persians still have half the brain size as normal cats, and despite their aloof nature, cats are definitely stupid, as a rule.

“You're not a normal cat, are you?” she asks. The cat shakes his head. Ari shrugs- she's seen weirder.

She's seen creatures that European wizards, who, like the non-magicals of only a few years past, would rush to classify, because clearly  _ aliens don't exist. _

And, on top of that, technically, Ari  _ is  _ an alien, which might automatically make her stranger than this little Persian cat could ever be.

“You don't think he is?” Hermione asks from the chair, and Ari jumps. She's grateful that she's out of sight of the mirror, because her feet were definitely more than four feet off the ground.

“No,” Ari says carefully, trying to hide her surprise and embarrassment all at once.

Ari scans around the room for Ron, but doesn't find him. Crookshanks looks at her strangely.

She can smell that the cat is not a normal cat. His scent is a little like Mrs. Figgs’s stranger cats, if she can put a feeling on it. He smells much more like magic than the cats strolling around the castle, but less like magic than Professor McGonagall.

“Okay, then,” Hermione mutters, side-eyeing her new pet just a little bit. Ari shrugs, and flops down on her bed, nudging Crookshanks off of it with her foot. Crookshanks hisses in righteous indignation and Hedwig hoots amusedly.

Hermione takes her cue and scoops up Crookshanks. She's just barely out of the room when the sound of Ari’s gentle snoring drifts through the door.

-

Ari wonders if she'll make it to the Welcoming Feast this year.

It's a valid concern- after all, she missed the feast her second year, and from what Mr. Weasley has been whispering, there is some new kind of guard around the castle, something designed to search out (and kill, Ari thinks) Sirius Black, the escaped madman.

When Mr. and Mrs. Weasley aren't watching her too closely, when they whisper of what Black has done, Ari removes her earplugs and, focusing through all the din of the Leaky Cauldron, listens in.

“Someone needs to tell her,” Mr. Weasley mutters under her breath. Ari, if she could in this shape, would pick up her ears. As it is, she folds her human ear closer towards them.

“Tell her what, Arthur? That her  _ godfather _ was responsible for the deaths of her parents? That he took the trust they placed in him- they made him their Secret Keeper for crying out loud- and turned it on its head? That he was a traitor, a Death Eater?” Mrs. Weasley hisses. Ari puts her earplugs back in. She's heard enough.

-

Ari checks over her supplies again, before they are due to leave. She investigates her broomstick, her books, her parchment and quills (though she will be drafting all essays on her notebooks with pencil from now on), and doesn't realize until Ron points it out to her that she's being a little extra about it, to be completely honest.

She's packed, unpacked, and repacked her trunk over seven times. She knows she has everything.

Still, she makes sure again, and again, and again. She'd taken another trip to non magical London not that long ago to purchase things like batteries and even another router, for what they had planned. Mrs. Weasley had kindly cast an Undetectable Extension Charm on one of her compartments in the trunk, providing room for all of her books while leaving space for the rest of the mess.

She arrives at the platform as prepared as she can be, with a whole host of ways to contact her newfound ‘better’ family, in case she needs an out immediately. She's heard that a friend of theirs is on standby in London, and hopes that if she sends the word out, they'll arrive in time. Something tells her that this year will be even more dangerous than the last.

Most of the compartments are full, by the time Ari makes her way on board. She, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny and Neville make their way to a compartment whose only occupant is a grayed, scarred man, who otherwise looks no older than Professor Snape, with a suitcase covered in peeling letters which read  _ Professor R. J. Lupin. _

Ari eyes him cautiously. She can hear his heart rate spike. This man is not asleep.

She shrugs her shoulders and sits herself by the door. Something tells her that she needs to be alert, so her books stay at the bottom of her bag, and she does not join in as Hermione deals the dominoes for a game that she does not know how to play.

Ari sits by the door, and waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapters eleven and twelve are also mostly done I just need to edit them bc i Do That Now


	11. firepower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ari waits for a long time before the train shudders to a stop and the temperature drops like a stone.  
> She has her wand in her hand immediately. Something tells her to wait, so she waits as her worst memories creep into her head. She grits her teeth and bares it. She's faced worse, now.  
> -  
> term begins with a bang, I guess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so I edited this quite a lot more than 10 but not as much as 12 mostly for continuity and a semi-decent pace.

Ari waits for a long time before the train shudders to a stop and the temperature drops like a stone.

She has her wand in her hand immediately. Something tells her to wait, so she waits as her worst memories creep into her head. She grits her teeth and bares it. She's faced worse, now.

As the black cloaked figures come into view, Ari remembers.

_ ‘I am loved,’  _ she thinks, casting a glance at her friends,  _ ‘I am loved.’ _

Ari casts her Patronus.

It isn’t there, at first- only a flicker of silver. But Ari remembers Hermione and Ron behind her now, remembers the kind face of Akiva as he tells her not to be afraid, remembers Naftali’s gentle tutelage and how he’d always been patient.

A massive cetacean bursts from her wand in a flurry of silver. It easily takes up the entire compartment, and Ari is faced with the strange predicament of being inside the glowing misty shape as it charges.

Ari realizes with a start that it is not her that races down the halls, but her Patronus. She blinks a handful of times, and her eyes swim. She is back in the compartment.

Professor Lupin is up on his feet, staring at her in shock. Ari smiles weakly at him, and collapses into nothingness.

-

She wakes to the familiar face of Madam Pomfrey.

The matron offers her chocolate as soon as she notes Ari’s quiet mumbles, and Ari takes it gratefully. She notes quite a few people that she remembers are more anxious, or don't have the best home lives, in the hospital wing with her, though none of them appear to have passed out.

She attempts to sit up, but Madam Pomfrey grips her shoulders and forces her to sit back down again.

“You're exhausted, dear. Try to get some rest,” she says. At her words, a few of the other students look at her and begin to whisper.

Ari takes out one of her earplugs again.

“-heard she cast a corporeal Patronus,” one of them says, and the few talking to him turn and stare at her anew. Ari smiles and waves.

There is the stomping of feet, and Ari smiles as a certain conglomerate of people throw themselves in her general direction.

First are, of course, Hermione and Ron, but Ari can see Ginny, Neville, and Ginny’s Ravenclaw friend, Luna Lovegood. Ari waves them over, and matches Madam Pomfrey’s glare with her own.

“With all due respect, ma’am, I’d rather stay here longer with friends around then a short stay where I'm missing them something fierce,” she says, and realizes that for just that moment, she sounded rather American.

Hermione giggles at her quietly.

Behind the whole group of them is Professor McGonagall.

“I heard that you performed a corporeal Patronus on the train today, Miss Potter. Is that true?” her Head of House asks. Ari nods sheepishly and  _ really _ hopes she doesn't ask more questions.

“Fifty points to Gryffindor for protecting other students from those beasts. I'll wait for Professors Flitwick or Lupin to award you the points on your stupendous use of Charms- that spell is one most adult witches and wizards aren't ever able to master. May I ask who taught you these spells?” she asks.

“My aunt and uncle offloaded me onto a group of my mother’s cousins,” (not a lie), “who turned out to be magical. They taught me a lot while I was with them.”

Professor McGonagall smiles widely at her, and nods.

Ari wonders if the professor realizes how much of that was carefully crafted bullshit.

-

Ari sort of sleepwalks through her first few classes. Thanks to Naftali’s (and a bit of Akiva’s, Ian’s, and Cassius’s) tutelage, she knows exactly what a spell will do before it's even demonstrated.

She's snapped back to focus when something really, really weird happens with Ron’s rat during Transfiguration.

Ron has always had problems with the  _ reverti _ spell, but it's never been this bad. McGonagall sighs and casts it for him.

Instead of the goblet turning to a rat, it turns into a prematurely balding man in his mid thirties.

She barely hears McGonagall's gasp as she casts a very rapid stunning charm.

The man twitches on the floor. Professor McGonagall lets out a long tirade of curses and pulls out a cage, expanding it, minimizing the space between the new bars, and tossing the man-rat in.

“Peter  _ fucking _ Pettigrew,” she hisses, then suddenly realizes she's in the same room as a bunch of students.

“Miss Potter, if you could cast a Patronus and instruct it to deliver the following message to the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement: Professor McGonagall has apprehended someone who appears to be Peter Pettigrew in the form of a rat,” she says, and does the same, though hers is instructed to collect Headmaster Dumbledore.

Ari does what she's told, and summons her Patronus (which she really needs to name, now that she thinks about it). There are the customary few gasps as to a., the fact that she can summon a corporeal Patronus on demand at  _ all,  _ and b., the sheer size of it.

The cetacean nods and speeds off, faster than Ari would expect for something of its size. In reality, it is more of a blur than a beast.

Before she even has a chance to calm herself, McGonagall shoots her a smile.

“Twenty points to Gryffindor for assisting a teacher in the apprehension of a criminal,” she says. Ari smiles back.

Malfoy grumbles from a few rows behind her about how it's all unfair.

“I can teach you the spell if you like,” she says chipperly, hiding all malice in her eyes.

Malfoy shakes his head rapidly. Ari holds back a laugh. He’ll always place his pride in front of his safety.

-

The actual arrest of Peter Pettigrew goes much less smoothly. It isn’t the Department head, apparently named Madam Bones, who arrives (and Ari will really have to look into if she’s related to Susan or not, and though she probably is, since the British wizarding community is very, very small, it’s still rude to assume that sort of thing), but an Auror- not a contingent, but a singular Auror- who seems less than thrilled to be doing their literal  _ job description _ .

Ari sits in confusion and shock as she reads the absolute nothing in the paper the next day, and the day after that. Her confusion and shock grow as she comes to the sluggish realization that they’ve  _ lost him,  _ that Peter Pettigrew, whoever he was, slipped their grasp.

Ari doesn’t know why that makes her so, so  _ angry,  _ but it does.

It's the thought that she hasn't done what Akiva suggested and informed her roommates of her new… situation that breaks her out of it.

She sits all of them down in a circle in the middle of the dorm room, and casts a silencing charm on the door.

“What I am about to say  _ cannot _ leave this room. I am willing to give the exception to Parvati telling her sister, of course, but really. Everyone needs to stay quiet about this. Hermione will back me up and believe me when I say I know how to cast a  _ strong _ Obliviate,” she says calmly. Lavender, Parvati, and Fay look at each other, then turn back towards Ari and nod.

“We can keep a secret. Lavender, Fay and I have managed to avoid outing Hermione for years now, if you recall,” Parvati says. Ari nods.

“Well. Turns out my mum wasn't as human as we thought,” she begins, and Fay gasps.

“You Manifested over the summer!” she says. Ari grins.

“Yeah, I did.”

“So, what are you now? I'm a Banshee, but we keep it quiet,” Lavender says, leaning forward excitedly. Ari’s grin stretches further as she stands.

She sheds her human shape with incredible grace, or at least she thinks so. Her spots appear starting from her eyes and moving outwards. She grows taller as her weight shifts from her whole foot to the balls of her feet and the bones in them grow longer. Nails grow into claws, and wings extend from her back. Ari folds them and tucks her tail around her legs.

“Oh, wow,” Fay says softly, eyes wide. Ari’s smile is now filled with sharp, venomous teeth, but it is a smile all the same.

She realizes, with sudden clarity, that she feels  _ safe. _

-

It doesn't take long for the three other girls to get hooked onto the Internet.

They don't have their own devices, of course- Lavender and Parvati being magically raised, they don't have any of it to begin with, and Fay, while she does know how to navigate around the computers, has left hers at home.

They set aside about an hour every night to binge watch something or another. The current pick is some Star Wars animated show that Hermione remembers faintly that they all seemed to be interested in, but Ari puts her foot down. They can't watch that until they watch the Original Trilogy, to which they all acquiesce. The first weekend of term is devoted towards the Original Trilogy. Then, of course, Ari sighs and clicks on the Netflix icon for the Clone Wars television show. She will not subject them to the prequels for one of their first introductions to non magical cinema (or, well, really cinema to begin with).

Parvati is the most interested in the new outlet. She owls her parents to ask for her own muggle computer, which they, while relatively confused, still send her. Hermione equips it with a lightning rune, and passes the other girl a set of headphones. Ari checks in on what she's been watching and finds that she's completely and utterly engrossed in the third season of Gotham, with a few other shows scattered around the list.

But mostly, it's Gotham.

Ari shrugs. She won't judge all that much- she herself has been hooked very sharply into Black Mirror.

She flops down onto her bed, and stares up into the air.

Then, she sits up, like she's just been struck with a bolt of lightning.

“Hermione, I have an idea.”

-

“I have a bad feeling about this, Ari,” Hermione says as she affixes the blindfold to Ari’s head. The T’karian chirps out a laugh and leaps off the ground, shimmering out of sight.

She gains altitude quickly. She can hear the water splashing below, and the wind through the trees.

Though none can see it, Ariela Potter still smiles widely, and, like Dos and Mir had taught her weeks ago, she pulls herself flat, turns, and folds her wings in.

She can hear the water grow closer, and frowns. She realizes in mid-fall that this probably isn't the best of ideas.

But Ari isn't one to back down from a challenge. She hears the water growing ever closer, but keeps her wings tucked in, until the last second.

There is the typical sound of an umbrella opening in a windstorm, the noise Ari has grown to find familiar over the weeks she's been flying with her wings. She hears the dull silence of the treeline, which absorbs her echoes (and she can  _ hear _ those echoes, now that she's used to her ears. She  _ can _ echolocate after all- this flight is just to test how well). Ari tucks her wings in again, and folds herself between the wide trunks where the foliage is less sparse.

She lets out a handful of clicks, and is rewarded when her guided twists and turns lead her to a safe place to land.

Ari’s claws slice right through the blindfold. She looks across the water and sees Hermione and Ron with confused faces. She makes her wings just a little visible, just along the edges, which frankly takes more concentration than invisibility as a whole, and retraces her steps.

Ari shifts to her human shape as she touches down, and looks around cautiously. She is on edge- like she should be, really- and doesn't want anyone but those that she's told to know.

She grins at Hermione and Ron as they make their way back inside.

She's going to have to tell her cousins about this.

-

Ari can smell the hippogriffs near the Care of Magical Creatures “classroom” from her dorm and has seen them on her snuck flights early in the mornings, but she still pretends to be surprised for Hagrid’s sake.

Buckbeak, the silver and gray hippogriff that reminds her a bit of Miriam, bows at the same time as Ari.

She grins. She doesn't know if it's Buckbeak recognizing her as a fellow flier or just simple respect (or maybe it's because she's a friend of Hagrid’s), but he seems to give her a bit more leeway than anyone else.

Riding a hippogriff, as it turns out, is amazing. It isn't quite as amazing as flying on one’s own, but it definitely beats out brooms and staying on the ground.

She continues to pet Buckbeak, even after she has returned to the ground. Hermione and Ron and Neville all introduce themselves to the proud creature. Out of the corner of her eye, Ari keeps watch on Malfoy, who, at this point, is liable to get himself kicked in the head or worse. He really is one of the worst people that Ari knows personally, and that's saying something, considering she's lived with the Dursleys for years on end.

Sure enough, he starts saying stupid things about the hippogriffs. Ari huffs, apologizes to Buckbeak, and storms over.

“Malfoy, I love to break it to you, but that hippogriff- Pitchdown, I believe your name is?” she asks the creature, who nods in acknowledgement, “is more intelligent than you will ever be. After all, interspecies empathy is one of the strongest signs of a quasi-sentient species, and you have none.”

Malfoy begins to sputter, and Ari rolls her eyes.

“Alright. Pitch- can I call you Pitch?” she asks. The hippogriff nods again, and laughs just a little, “Pitch here was probably more than a little offended from what you were saying about her. That's correct, yeah? Tap thrice for yes.”

The hippogriff taps the ground three times. Ari  _ knows  _ that she's only humoring her because she finds this whole affair amusing. She'll see if she can get communications up by some point within the next week.

“So. If you remember  _ anything _ from what Hagrid told us  _ literally less than three hours ago _ , you will recall that  _ hippogriffs are most likely to attack when insulted. _ And, of course, like a Grade A ponce, you insult her, because you, Malfoy, either have a memory worse than that of a goldfish, or are  _ actively trying to involve our teacher in a lawsuit _ . And if you keep on trying to involve my  _ favorite teacher _ in a lawsuit, I will file my own lawsuit, just to get you to  _ shut up _ ,” she snaps. Malfoy narrows his eyes.

“For what?” the ponce says confidently, and while he talks a big talk, Ari can hear his heartbeat speeding up, can smell him beginning to sweat (and it isn’t a nice smell. Sweating fearful humans, or really sweating fearful anything, smell very bad).

“For whatever you’re fidgeting about, Malfoy. Don’t think I won’t find it- and definitely don’t think you’ll be any good at hiding it,” she replies, eyes narrowed.

Malfoy runs, his goons following. Ari feels a sort of rush- it’s nice to be able to intimidate someone successfully for once, to get them to back away, to back off.

Normally, now, Ari would raise her wings, look aggressive and enormous, and chase him even further away.

Normally.

Ari twists a bracelet around her wrist and sighs.

She wonders if it’s worth it to stay here, at a school where she can’t even reveal what she really is- in more ways than just the one, now that she thinks about it.

She knows the curriculum has barely changed in the past few hundred years. She knows that she can learn everything from cousins, cousins who love her dearly and want nothing more than for her to succeed.

Ari looks back, and sees impressed faces, a few shy smiles.

_ ‘That’s why I do it,’ _ she thinks,  _ ‘for them.’ _

She snorts quietly.

_ ‘The big question, though, is if that means enough to me to stay.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still don't have a beta haha!
> 
> also ari is GAY and i'm pretty sure i'll have her end up w ginny b/c i think I can do it decently bc the one thing I can write is girls who love each other a whole lot bc I am a Whole Ass Lesbian and actually writing wlw was my gay awakening so. but anyways they're like thirteen they ain't dating yet! my baby sister's like thirteen and while she is a baby pan she's not old enough to date, so these brats aren't old enough either.
> 
> most of this fic's romance quota will be filled by Talia tripping all over Keziah (who will be namedropped next chapter and introduced properly, probably in a dramatic fight, in chapter 13. talia is head over heels for this girl and i fuckin love writing them together? like both of them think the other one is all suave about it but they're both Disasters.
> 
> Several recurring/plot important Demerus and other T'karians are being introduced in chapter twelve (things are sorta happening in chapter 12! not really but I rewrote like a third of it so!)
> 
> The big problem I think I have with this chapter is resolving the "does she tell the dorm and do they take it well" thread really quickly, but I wanted to get it out of the way so we can have the Plotting Room in later chapters and slowly transition it into an open secret.


	12. burnscar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things start to Happen (sort of)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay! talia's back

There is a whisper in the air, and Arik Demeru (or Chasen, really, for most purposes) is curious.

He is the youngest of his cousins, as far as he knows- barely eleven, and a half-human at that- but even then, he’s usually not kept this out of the loop. Even Mattai is keeping secrets, and while he and his half-brother aren’t that close, at least not yet (but Arik is trying, he’s trying  _ hard, _ he absolutely adores the idea of a brother even if the man has hair nearly as gray as his dad’s is  _ already _ and has a gruff voice and talks about the responsibilities of the Royal Guard a  _ lot _ ), the man usually at least tries to tell him  _ some _ gossip. Apparently it’s a Demeru family tradition. Arik wants to use this to pry, at least in some sort of way, but something in the back of his head tells him two things.

The first, of course, is that no matter how badly he wants to know, it really  _ isn’t _ his business, or at least it won’t be for at least a little while. That something in the back of Arik’s head tells him that his time will come soon- when he’s still young and fragile, still oh-so-easy to break, but not yet. Because right  _ now, _ the adults still have something of a handle on things, and the hooked-beaked bird he sees in his nightmares and his daydreams doesn’t have a place yet.

The second is the more painful of the two truths. No matter how he wants to spin it, no matter is Mattai really is fond of him at all, the former Royal Guard will squish that truth down into nothingness out of pure resentment and tell Arik that he has no business talking of Demeru business, because he isn’t a Demeru.

And in a way, Mattai would be sort of right, really. And that  _ hurts. _ Arik thinks the world of his older brother, but the man with gray already in his hair and a dim smile on his face even when he could be jumping for joy and nobody would judge him- he doesn’t ever seem to  _ care _ about Arik back. And Arik knows he does- he’s seen faint, gentle smiles when Matt thinks he isn’t looking, seen the addition of a cookie to his lunchbox, felt care and kindness seep from this young-but-old man who tries to put on a brave face but looks like he’s about to burst into tears- but for some reason, he absolutely refuses to show it.

For now, Arik stays out of Demeru business. For now, he sees the hooked-beaked bird in his dreams, sees claws and teeth that he knows are his own and some strange sort of eyes that seem almost clouded over but also  _ not, _ like he is actively  _ trying _ to hide his eyes, hide the eyes that make him who he is, the eyes that make him Arik Demeru, and he wonders why he would ever,  _ ever _ try to do that.

What Arik doesn’t understand now, while he is young and small and untested, is that there will come a day where he wants to hide who he is, wants to keep everyone from knowing his real name. They will call him by a different one. Or they will call Mattai by a different name.

It’s all up to a roll of the dice, really. A painful, bloody, grief-inducing roll of the dice, but a roll of the dice nonetheless. It’s tied to a very different roll of the dice, too, but a different one- no less painful, no less grief-inducing, but it is a little less bloody.

-

Talia Demeru, the Crown Princess of T’kari, is most certainly  _ not  _ panicking.

Well, at least that's true on the outside.

Her mother paces in the corner of the room. The current Zeve’enet (whom Talia really,  _ really _ hopes might be her father-in-law someday), Mikhial Tavi, coils himself around one of the chairs.

“So. The nestling is absolutely, confirmed, one of the Demeru brood?” Mikhial asks. Talia nods. It is a testament to how well those in the little room know each other that the usually incredibly composed politician lets out a long, breathy whistle and shakes his head.

“Miks, this isn't the time,” the Queen mutters from her place near the door. Miks sighs again, and turns back towards Talia.

“So. Who dropped the ball there? I know shit went wild with Kimah’s kids, but I didn’t think we’d lose an entire set this suddenly,” he pries. Talia bristles, but only for a moment.

“None of ours,” she says curtly, then adds “though I do believe it was likely whoever tried and failed to execute Lily Potter’s will. From what it says, she was good friends with your sister, Mikhial. One of the possible guardians listed happened to be her.”

Talia was astoundingly unhappy when she herself heard this news. Mirsea Divalin is quite possibly one of the best caregivers that she knows of.

She doesn't know if it was something in the back of her head reminding Lily Potter of her heritage, or simply care for a friend with a whole host of adopted children already, but in her will, Mirsea is listed before Black, and after the Longbottoms. Directly after the Longbottoms, actually.

Divalin herself is also angry, though she isn't in the room with them. She is in Britain, now, preparing to find Black, maybe speak with him.

Talia knows this because Divalin is being followed by a full squad to insure her protection, and among that squad is Divalin’s niece, Mikhial’s daughter, and the love of Talia’s life, Keziah Tavi.

-

Mordechai Tavi has absolutely no clue what he's doing.

Well, really, he does have a clue. He is part of Maaravi Demeru’s guard, and he takes his job  _ very  _ seriously. What he doesn't have a clue about is why he's back on Earth after they specifically took him away from here.

Mordechai is quite a bit older than his sister- a little over half a millennia to be specific- and even more so if one counts maturity, and he does what he does incredibly well.

“Hey, Lucky,” Maaravi calls quietly, and Mordechai nods, opening his eyes and slowly spreading his visibility.

“Ravi. What's our status?” he asks with a chirp, cooking his now visible tail around the banister.

“Not your concern. You have a solid grasp on teleportation arrays, yes?”

Mordechai frowns, but nods again.

“Where do you want me to go?” he asks.

“Back to the States. We got a message from a woman named Penelope Garcia- she managed to get into our system, and I have absolutely no clue how. They're asking for help- she says she doesn't know for what yet, but the Seer tipped her off about it and she's on edge,” the man hums, before turning his head and narrowing his eyes.

“Sir?” Mordechai asks. Maaravi Demeru raises his tail above his head and flicks it hard. There is a sound like the unsheathing of a thousand knives at once, and a body coated in an invisibility cloak drops, a diamond-hard feather now protruding from its skull like the horn of a unicorn.

“I can take care of myself, fledgeling, but they're going to need your help. Call in who you'd like. The little one is fond of them, so we'd rather they all stay alive, you know.”

Mordechai nods again, ignoring the jab about his age (he's the average age for new parents, for the Queen's sake!), and begins to carve out the array in the wooden floor. While he builds it, he frowns- he knows the Moondancer gossip well, and he knows exactly what they might need his help for.

It takes a shorter time for him to build the array than it ever does for anyone else. Mordechai is a genius when it comes to this kind of magic- he has invented whole new kinds of combinations for interplanetary and interstellar travel, cutting times from years to seconds.

Across the ocean?

That's a piece of cake.

-

Penelope Garcia notices several strange things about the young man who'd suddenly appeared in her domain.

For one, he doesn't look human. Garcia has a few theories as to how she knows this.

The first is that his accent- one that emphasizes staccato T’s and vowels, and has a slightly chirpy sound to it, is one that Garcia has only heard from one other person before.

It's Akiva’s accent.

The second is that she notices is his body language. He stands like he's used to running, or just walking on the balls of his feet. That matches Akiva as well, she notes.

The third theory has to do with the only thing this young man really differs in from Akiva, and that is the color of his eyes.

They're  _ purple. _ No joke. They're not even it-depends-on-the-light purple, or just a purplish kind of blue. No, this young man has morning glory purple eyes. They have a sort of weird quality to them as well, like they're reflecting the light off of her computers.

Garcia realizes that A. She's staring, and B. She hasn't answered his question.

“Yeah,” she says honestly, “We could use your help.”

The young man- Tavi, he said his name was?- nods, and steps out of her domain with a purpose. Garcia nearly goes to shock again when he completely disappears from view.

“Relax,” he whispers, “it’s just camouflage.”

Garcia does not relax, but she appreciates the sentiment. She stalks down to the meeting with a purpose.

“So, what do we have here?” she asks. Gideon mutters something, and Elle looks at her feet.

“Some sort of Old World werewolf. Aviv’s pissed, I think whoever it is might have some relation to the person that Turned her,” a warm voice says. It's Ian.

“Where's your smaller half?” Garcia asks.

“Upset. Aviv isn't the only one who knows who this is, and Cass knows them personally,” Ian replies.

Violet flickers into view, and gasps ring throughout the room.

“I believe that we may need to earn a few wolves here,” the winged man mutters, “that Fenrir Greyback’s first lieutenant is in the States.”

“Do you have a name?” Gideon asks, barely phased.

“I do,” he hums.

“And?” Reid presses, looking more anxious than Garcia has ever seen him.

“He currently goes under the assumed name of Lycaon, but his true name is Jason Lowell. Of course, among Moondancer circles, from what I know, he is called the Betrayer,” he replies smoothly.

“I already get the idea, but someone's gotta ask it: why?” Morgan presses.

“That,” Mordechai hisses, a peculiar light in his violet eyes like a flashlight through amethyst, “is a question for your friend Cassius. They have a… complicated… history together.”

Ian nods, shaking slightly.

“Got any recommendations for how to deal with him?” Hotchner asks. Mordechai cocks his head to the side.

“Let Cassius kill him, if he asks to. It would be poetic, at least.”

Nobody in the room asks him what that he means by that.

-

Ari spins around on a dime and places her wand at Malfoy’s throat.

The blonde backs up, grey eyes shot wide. Instead of looking straight on at Ari, his eyes are directed to a few feet above her.

Ari can hear a faint growling noise from the same area, but doesn't dare look up. It's an unfamiliar growl, sort of, but it also sounds more than a little like the overguarded kid she'd met earlier in the summer.

Malfoy runs. Ari looks up to see an amused face complete with warm dark brown eyes that remind her of tiger’s eye or the interior of a crystallized ammonite fossil. She looks only a little older than Ari herself.

“Fizah Gehdi,” the girl introduces herself as. Ari blinks.

“I'm your guard,” she explains. Ari nods slowly.

“Can I call you Fizz?” she asks, and Fizz laughs. Ari notes the similarities between this girl and Matisyahu and wonders if she might be his cousin on his father's side.

She smiles anyways. No matter who Fizz is related to, she's here to protect her, and frankly, when it comes to that, Ari needs all the help she can get.

-

Fizah, or Fizz as she has now been dubbed, is an excellent bodyguard.

She has mastered the art of complete, sightless invisibility that Ari has only begun to delve into, and already, she has her own suggestions.

“Don't fly in a place without your eyes that you aren't at least mostly sure you can fly in with your eyes. I've heard my fair share of horror stories of guards slamming into rock formations and losing their wings for years at least. And if you're flying fast enough, you don't need to close your eyes. The rest of you being camouflaged is more than enough,” she instructs. Ari nods eagerly, stretching her wings out excitedly as the both of them perch on the castle walls.

Fizah’s own wings are completely different from Ari’s. They're far broader, built for gliding. They look like an eagle’s. The tiger’s-eye-brown of her eyes is on display at their furthest edges, rimming feathers of brilliant gold, orange, and red.

Fizz leaps like a serval, springing dozens of feet into the air in a single bound. It is plenty of space for her to pump her wings down, turn, and fly normally. Ari copies the movement, though her own leap doesn't come anywhere close to Fizz’s.

Ari follows her closely, shimmering all but her eyes out of sight. She follows as Fizz’s maneuvers become tighter and tighter, as the margin of error shrinks and shrinks.

She hears a whoop of excitement as she rushes past the Gryffindor tower, and smiles as she recognizes Hermione’s voice.

Fizz hits the metaphorical brakes almost immediately after that, stretching out her broad wings until she slows enough to land safely in a tree. Ari goes a few steps further, and lands directly on a branch, something she knows from experience is difficult.

Ari can't see Fizz’s face, but she's pretty sure that she's smiling.

As she re-enters her dorm somewhere around six in the morning, Ari hears Fizz following her. Her bodyguard purrs contentedly when the collection of girls manage to transfigure another bed, one that folds easily up and away into an extra closet.

“Nobody tells McGonagall about Fizz?” Ari asks, and all the girls nod.

“I mean, if you have a bodyguard, at least while we’re in here, we  _ all _ have a bodyguard,” Lavender ventures.

“True enough. My charge here would be more than a little upset if anything happened to the lot of you,” Fizz says, temporarily making her head visible.

There are a few coos from the other girls, but for the most part, they take it in stride.

It is Ari that they're dealing with, after all.

-

Aviv Hadar is terrified out of her goddamn mind.

That’s not a good sign for a two hundred and sixty something year old werewolf. A werewolf who doesn’t even blink when prophecies depicting the end of the world (or the end of the world as she knows it, at least) take over her entire head. A werewolf who is known for being angry, but unafraid, at least, a strong emotional rock for the sake of the little ones in her pack.

But for the first time in her life that she can remember- and she can remember a  _ long _ way back- Aviv has absolutely no clue what the future holds.

There is a web of decisions about to be made, even bigger than the web that spins around her now, tied to near monolithic heroes with names considered by some to be of an almost deity-like level (sometimes outmatching the deities among them).

She stares up into the sky, and watches the view. To anyone else, it is stars- magnificent stars, but nothing more than that. Aviv sees a million kinds of futures explode into existence and into flame, furling into and out of the concepts of reality. Some of them will never happen, at least not in her timeline, but they still swirl at the edges and give her a sense of grounding. They are not possible, and yet seem set in stone.

In her time, Aviv smiles softly, and looks to the horizon.

“Good luck, kid. You’re gonna need it,” she whispers.

She shifts as she runs north. She has much to speak to certain people about.

Aviv Hadar is terrified out of her goddamn mind, but at the same time, she’s excited. The future is like a roller coaster ride that keeps expanding and folding with a billion trillion quadrillion choices every day instead of one fluid path, and maybe it’s not a roller coaster at all, but at least it’s fun.

-

“So,” Ron says, a little uncomfortable to be in the girl’s dorm but otherwise fine, “what's the plan?”

Fizz coughs once. Six heads turn towards her. The slightly older (teenager? A nine hundred year old but not an adult bodyguard probably doesn't count as a teenager)  _ person _ sighs.

“We’re going to have to tip off at least a few people, probably starting with the house elves,” she says simply, moving the little pieces to the section on the cardboard labeled “in the know”. On that same section are a handful of other pieces which are  _ apparently _ supposed to represent those present, Cass and Ian, the BAU, and Ari’s cousins. One of those pieces, a very vibrant purple one, is currently placed with the ones representing those employed by the FBI.

“Lupin, probably, too. And anyone we can without alerting the Ministry,” Parvati says, cocking her head to the side.

“McGonagall. Yay or nay?” Ron says. There are a few pondering looks from around the room.

“Let’s play it safe. Nay for now, probably a yay later if we scope her out a little longer,” Hermione replies.

“Hagrid is a nay. He's a wonderful person, but he  _ cannot _ keep a secret. I move to inform Ginny, Luna, and Neville. Ron, we can trust Ginny and Neville, right?” Ari asks.

“Absolutely. Luna as well. Padma is a yay I think if we know for certain she's not one of the ones bullying Luna,” he hums. Parvati’s eyes go sharp.

“Padma is a  _ hard nay. _ I don't know what happened to her when she joined Ravenclaw, but if people say I'm the gossip, than she can  _ never _ be trusted with a secret,” she mutters.

“My brothers are also out, then. I love them, but they're absolute rubbish at secret keeping.”

“What about…” Ari begins to say, but trails off.

“Go on,” Hermione calls.

“Never mind. It was kind of stupid anyways,” she replies.

“No, say it,” Lavender says, moving closer to the rug circle in the center of the room. She and Fay are the only ones who haven’t spoken on this as of yet.

“Do you have any ideas, Fay?” Ari asks, and though it screams of redirection, they all as a group decide to let it slide.

Fay blinks, and snaps her fingers.

“What about Professor Flitwick?” she asks, and everyone erupts into chatter. It is a decisive hand movement from Fizz that shuts them all up.

“She's right. Professor Flitwick, from what we know of him, is half-human. While his scenario is not identical to Ari’s own, he still likely will not release Ari’s information to Dumbledore or the general public,” the T’karian advises.

“And we certainly don't want Snape to know,” Lavender interjects, “but what was yours again, Ari?”

“Well,” she considers, body language screaming caution, “someone in Hufflepuff is likely a good idea. What do we think about Cedric Diggory?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've seen into the spiderverse recently and idk if it shows. i hope it does a little with Aviv's future-vision thing. i adored that movie y'all should go see it and will i swap out tom holland spidey in this fic for the old man? maybe. i might. he's funny. and it's not like i'm using the "marvel" side of this much beyond, like, five characters tops? probably won't but also i adore peter b parker he's just very funny and i think that's great  
> anyways!!! as promised, talia absolutely adores Keziah
> 
> and!!! Mordechai's nickname is "lucky" because Chai (drop the C if it's difficult to pronounce here, this is the back-of-the-throat "ch") means Life and the number 18 in Hebrew, which is also a lucky number in Judaism bc it means life.  
> his name is mordechai bc i wanted to have an excuse for his nickname to be lucky
> 
> \- fizz is not an adult but don't worry she isn't a child soldier she just passed all her guarding classes like REALLY early bc she REALLY wanted to be a royal guard bc her dad was one and she thought it was super cool as a little baby. they did NOT assign her officially but she managed to figure out that nobody else was assigned to Ari and basically went "what the fuck, okay, i guess i'll do this by myself"


	13. zap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is an odd sort of energy in the air, Cedric thinks. It's felt this way since the beginning of term, but as of late, the energy has gotten wilder, like whoever it belongs to is growing less and less tame by the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways! the cast of characters keeps growing, as you can see, and I apologize for that. it's... a lot of people. Fizz and Sera will be recurring characters from now on, along with Kezi, Mattai, and Ezra.

There is an odd sort of energy in the air, Cedric thinks. It's felt this way since the beginning of term, but as of late, the energy has gotten stronger, wilder, like whoever it belongs to is growing less and less tame by the day.

Whoever it is, Cedric is proud of them. The Diggory family are nothing short of domesticated at this point, and whatever presence is here, whoever turns the air to lightning, is definitely still wild.

He sees a blur in the sky, from time to time. He pays it no heed- it's none of his business, after all.

It becomes his business when a particularly ambitious team of Gryffindor third years hunt him down after Quidditch practice.

“We know you're a dragon,” Patil begins calmly. Cedric narrows his eyes, and steps backwards, quietly gathering air and fire in his throat.

“No need for that,” a familiar voice says, and Ariela Potter, the Gryffindor Seeker, steps into view.

“We’ve cornered you and informed you of what we have learned because you're in a position of power and you know how to keep a secret- or at least yours. We’d like to know if we can trust you with ours,” Brown says, hands folded over her lap.

Cedric finds himself smiling tiredly. They're kids, clearly- little ones. The surge of protectiveness that makes him such an excellent Prefect and Hufflepuff rises.

They need someone at their back.

“Sure,” he says, and just like that, something materializes out of the air. If he were human, it might scare him out of his mind, but domesticated or no, Cedric Diggory is a dragon, and T’karians do not phase him.

This one, however, seems a bit young to be a guard. He voices this.

“Technically? I'm not,” the guard, who introduces herself as Fizah or “Fizz”, says. Cedric’s eyebrows go up.

“I'm certified for it, obviously. But none of the actual, assigned guards want to leave their posts, and nobody’s going to assign a literal child to a post, so I took this mostly upon myself,” she clarifies. Everyone shrugs. They've seen weirder.

“So what do you need help with?” Cedric asks, and the group of children smile broadly.

-

Fizah lifts her head to the lightening sky early in the next morning. Ari copies the movements, listening intently for wing beats and trying to pick out whatever she smells or sees.

There is a shimmer in the air- a faint one- after Ari gives a high, long greeting, one completely inaudible to human ears.

Ari hears a different greeting resounding back at her. It is harsh and scratchy, like whoever it is has been screaming for a time, and Fizah snaps back like she's been burned by a hot iron.

“She's- how is she-  _ how _ is she- how is she  _ alive? _ ” her guard whispers, launching herself into the air. Ari follows, shimmering out of sight.

There is a tired woman with thick, but graying hair and dulled green eyes, aloft in the air above Hogwarts. She seems to come back to life just a little when she sees Ari, but she still remains drab and dull and exhausted.

“Seraphina Demeru,” Fizah whispers, with just a little hint of awe. Seraphina salutes with a tired smile, and immediately falls into the lake.

Ari chirps in alarm and begins the arduous process of tugging what she assumes is another cousin out of the water. This one is older, like Akiva- quite possibly the oldest person of her species that Ari has met yet.

Seraphina winks at her and pulls out a shoddy, broken broom and shifts to a more human shape.

“I have no clue what's going on right now, planning to wing it. Anything you would suggest?” she asks.

“Say you're applying for the History of Magic position,” Ari says. Seraphina nods.

“Good idea. You go, try to look surprised if I end up getting the spot. Don't let anyone see you, kid,” she hums. Ari nods, and runs off.

She watches from the Gryffindor dormitory as McGonagall rushes out to the lake, watches as Seraphina pulls a very elaborate story out of nowhere, and McGonagall buys it. Good. If McGonagall buys it, then the rest of the teachers will.

Ari sags in relief. She watches as Fizah paces the circular rug in the middle of the floor, and frowns.

“So what's her story?” she asks, hearing irritated mumbling from the other girls

“Nobody’s been able to find her for decades. She went missing trying to find a dead friend’s body to give him a proper funeral and… she never came back. It freaked out my aunt,” she says calmly. Ari thinks she's withholding many critical details there but she won't push too hard.

“Doesn't look like she's been having a good time,” Ari notes, remembering cut up arms and a scar going all the way across her face, a scar that to most humans would probably be ugly.

Ari thinks it's really cool and makes her look more intimidating, which is definitely a plus.

“What is she doing  _ here, _ though?” Fizah mumbles. Ari shrugs, and puts the curtains back in their proper places. She indicates for Fizah to hide the extra bed and herself as a thumping in the hall grows ever closer.

It's one of the girl Prefects, checking up on the lot of them. Ari waves. As soon as the footsteps are far enough away again, Ari indicates it's safe.

Fizz could back up on her bed again, looking more forlorn than Ari has ever seen her. She seems almost lost, and Ari’s heart goes out to her.

-

Seraphina gets the job. However, she doesn't displace Binns- their curriculum simply adds her on as an extra history class.

She instructs the students to call her by a hilariously fake name- Devon, really, who names themselves after a county.

If Ari felt she could make “old fossil” jokes around the woman without people looking at her strangely, she would in a heartbeat.

Professor Devon begins their proper History curriculum with the real beginning for human magic- thousands of years ago, where humans got their start. She sees confusion and frustration on the face of some of the Slytherins, who know nothing of basic human history and are starting from the ground up.

“You're telling me,” Professor “Devon” says, shock evident in her voice, “that you have no clue what the theory of evolution is?”

“No,” Malfoy replies, malice in his eyes, “is that something stupid Muggles came up with to explain magic?”

Seraphina puts her face into her palm and groans loudly.

“Alright, then. Time for me to explain basic biology that nearly everyone your age that isn't a magical already understands. If I have to give you all sex ed as well I am going to have a  _ long _ talk with your parents,” she mutters, turning back to the blackboard, then pausing.

“I'm going to ask for double pay. They want me to teach eight classes at once because none of you understand basic chemistry or political science? Sure. But I am  _ going _ to get a raise for it,” she hisses.

“Professor?” Neville asks, with a grin that Ari thinks makes him look like he's up to something, which is impossible, because Neville is  _ never _ up to something.

“Yes, Mr. Longbottom,” Seraphina replies, a tired sound to her voice.

“What's a Darwin?” he asks, pointing at the board. Seraphina sighs again.

“Alright. This isn't actually important to History but I believe that a basic instruction on biology is somewhat necessary so you all can appreciate the fossils on my walls. Darwin was a biologist- a  _ good _ biologist, keep that in mind. However, my personal favorite example of how Evolution and Natural Selection works is Batesian mimicry, named after the  _ non-magical,” _ she says, with strong emphasis, “Henry Walter Bates.”

-

Ari is so focused on all of the nonsense in all of her other classes that she barely pays attention to Defense, beyond the fact that the teacher is obviously a werewolf.

Professor Lupin doesn't seem to know that she knows, which Ari thinks is pretty solid, though he has taken an extreme interest in her Patronus.

He hasn't let her take a step in front of the Boggart yet. Ari thinks that's wise, considering while she has no clue as to what form her worst fear will take it’s likely not something as benign as those of the other students.

She finds herself in Lupin’s classroom after hours, staring at a grindylow and wondering how different she and it really are.

“Do you have anything you’d like to tell me?” he says calmly, a fondness hidden behind his eyes. Ari shakes her head.

The dorm may have decided that Lupin could be told, but Ari isn’t ready to tell him yet. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be- beyond a few moments of kindness, the man’s given her no reason to trust him the way that she trusts her cousins, the way she trusts Fizz, or the way she trusts those of the Plotting Room.

_ ‘Speaking of which,’  _ Ari thinks,  _ ‘We really need to find a safe place for all of us to meet up. It was fine when all we had to do was haul Ron up to the girl’s dorm, but now we have a teacher in the know, and we’re planning to tell Flitwick, and we’re also planning to tell two more out of dorm Gryffindors and a Ravenclaw. The singular dormitory room just won't work for that anymore.’ _

She says goodbye to Lupin kindly enough and scurries off to find her friends.

-

“I think we should tell him,” Mattai Demeru whispers, coiling his tail loosely around his legs.

“Finally warming up to the little one, I see?” Ezra chirps softly, staring out upon the glittering city. His eyes track a falcon chasing after pigeons and a few of the area’s local superheroes fighting crime.

“Ezra,” Mattai responds tiredly. Ezra grins back at the old, tired T’karian, only a few decades younger than his own mother and easily a century or two Akiva’s senior.

“What? I can see why you would, he's a precious one. Smart, too,” Ezra says. One of those rare fond smiles graces Mattai’s face, before he sighs again.

“How do you do it?” he asks Ezra, who frowns.

“The sibling thing,” Mattai clarifies.

“I'm not an older brother, ‘Tai. I can't tell you much on that,” Ezra hums, ears pricking at the sound of another person.

They step calmly out of the way of an incoming brawl between a black, gooey creature that Ezra would estimate to be roughly the size of Aviv Hadar on a particularly bad full moon- that being absolutely massive with wicked claws and sharp teeth- and a group of some sort of mob goons- standard New York superhero fare.

“Isn't that one from San Francisco?” Mattai asks him, indicating the black goo monster. Ezra shrugs.

“I mostly deal with Westchester, what would I know?” he snips, watching the fight with interest.

“He is, from what I remember. Fellow alien, too,” Mattai responds, sitting back to watch the show.

There's a flicker of red and blue in the corner of Ezra’s vision, and he curses just a little.

“The kiddo’s back,” he whispers to Mattai, “think you can direct him away from this for a hot second until whoever this is finishes up?”

“Do I  _ think _ I can pull off menacing? Cousin, have you ever  _ met _ me? And who says the web-slinger’s a kid?” Mattai retorts, just a hint of a joking, offended tone creeping back into his voice.

“Yeah, yeah. I'll stand guard- good luck distracting the  _ kid _ , and remember,  _ do not hurt him. _ I think we both enjoy living within a thousand mile radius of New York City, cousin,” Ezra shoots back.

Mattai laughs, almost a cackle, and lifts off the building with grace. Ezra watches as the red and blue figure seems to change direction as the immense “monster” comes into view, watches as Mattai leads the kid safely away from whatever’s going on here.

There are bodies scattered along the rooftop when Ezra glances back, and the immense goo beast seems to be curious as to where the noise is coming from, not noticing the fascinated pair of vivid eyes like green agate, which don’t seem all that out of place in front of the billboard behind them.

Ezra keeps his breathing quiet, and lifts off as soon as the creature turns its back. He can’t ascend as quickly as his brother can but it’s fast enough for him- he’s mostly out of reach, now.

He continues to watch closely from a safe distance (as birds of prey and those who might be able to consider themselves raptor-adjacent tend to be able to do) as the black goo seems to melt off and absorb back into what appears to be a very human form. He angles his ears back towards the ground.

“See, we can still eat bad people, you were just having a hissy fit,” whoever it is that seems to be the host of the goo creature snaps, and Ezra shrugs.

It’s really not his business if the mob takes a couple hits in major metropolitan cities because of a carnivorous fellow alien.

He flies off.

-

Keziah Tavi screams.

It’s not a scream of fear, brought on by some horrible event or a monster out of her worst nightmares. Nor is it a scream of anger, a scream of those who will not be put down any longer.

Keziah Tavi screams (well, actually, that’s a bit of an overstatement, it’s more of a shout) in frustration, slicing a street sign in half with a flick of her tail.

The few with her take a handful of steps back, including her aunt, Mirsea Divalin.

“Isn’t that a little excessive?” the woman asks, tilting her head curiously. Keziah snorts irritably. The sound rumbles around in her lungs and chest, turning deep and growly.

“Probably, but do I care? No,” Keziah retorts calmly, leaping up into the tree cover.

“What did you find?” one of the other members of the team asks- Keziah for the life of her cannot remember their name just by the voice, but they’ve proven themselves competent backup and she feels horrible about the not-remembering thing.

“You can find out for yourself,” she replies, fixing her orchid-purple eyes upon them. They shimmer into view again.

“I was about to make a ‘did you forget I’m blind’ joke, actually- not sure whether to be appreciative or slightly irritable about the fact that I don’t get to use it,” they hum, cloudy silver eyes and silver patterns across their wings marking them as Lirire Viskel. Keziah snorts.

“I’m not stupid, Viskel, and besides, even someone not visually impaired, myself included, wouldn’t be able to  _ see _ what was going on,” she snarks, but there is a light tone to her voice, trying to convey through sound what the team’s most talented saboteur and their resident espionage expert can’t get for lack of visual cues.

“What  _ is _ it, Tavi,” another member of the team snaps.

“Fine. The British DMLE is absolutely trash at doing things by the book or even leaving a  _ proper _ paper trail. Even the Canadians and Americans are better, and the Americans  _ intentionally _ make people go quiet and the Canadians… I don't want to talk about the Canadians right now. This just screams of general incompetence, too- does nobody here have  _ any _ sense?” she whines, just a little, and the team laughs.

“I doubt it,” Viskel laughs. Keziah sighs, and jumps back up again, claws digging into the bark of a nearby tree.

“I'm not going back in there. It's barely calm enough here,” she mutters, casting narrowed eyes at a park bench.

“You don't have to. Let’s go back to base and discuss,” Mirsea says, taking over the conversation with a flick of her tail.

Keziah follows her tiredly, jumping while cloaked from roof to roof until the team finds their base, a safe place to sleep for the night.

She curls up into herself, squeezing a nearby hunk of metal until it begins to squish like cheese through her fingers. Her tail fans over her face, just enough to keep the light from shining into her eyes.

She is doing this for the little one, and she is doing this for Talia, who is invested heavily in her safety. Talia, who would likely be able to pick up whatever vestigial paper trail was left, Talia, who is absolutely and incredibly brilliant.

Keziah sighs once, before she falls asleep. She has about three hours before she’s on lookout duty.

-

“Professor Devon?” a house elf squeaks. Seraphina smiles. She’s grateful for the fact that they don’t dumb down their speech around her.

“Yes, Dobby?” she asks, fighting the urge to make a majestic turn complete with a flare of her enormous wings like she would back home. It makes her feel a quarter her size, to hide her wings, and she absolutely hates it.

“You were asking about a safe place to meet for your group, right?” he calls from a little down the hallway, running towards the stairs now. Both he and Seraphina try their best to keep this running and yelling as nonchalant as possible. It’s not too difficult, though, as witches and wizards seem to be under the impression that one of the most powerful species in the magical world is beneath their notice (which Seraphina has to admit is a  _ genius _ disguise on the house elves’ parts, since going under the radar is one of the best ways to avoid dying at the hands of the less magically powerful, but larger and more violent humans), and Seraphina’s legs are long enough that just one of her strides is the same length as somewhere between seven and ten of Dobby’s.

The little house-elf with an enormous amount of socks on his head (which Seraphina now adds to on occasion, along with knitting more off-work clothing for the elves committed to the ruse that they don’t work for payment and they hate fine garments) leads her to a corridor on the seventh floor.

Seraphina frowns as she places a hand on the wall. She can smell the magic behind here, hear it humming. It asks her what she needs with a gentle kind of voice, like that of a parent telling fairy tales to their children late in the night.

_ “I need many things,” _ she whispers to the wall in a language that only few others in the castle understand,  _ “but above them all is a place that is safe. I need somewhere with an Internet connection where I can help train a couple of very powerful children into some more powerful, but also more in control adults. I need a place where I can explain everything to them, and I will not be overheard, and we can bingewatch Netflix, because everyone needs to calm down with mindless television, sometimes.” _

The wall laughs happily, and obliges. There is a door, there, a warm, welcoming one, that, when opened by Seraphina, reveals itself to be solid oak.

_ “It is strong,” _ the room whispers to her,  _ “it is safe, and it is everything you have asked.” _

Seraphina smiles widely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, not a fight scene, unfortunately, but hey! keziah's here!  
> and seraphina. that's nice.  
> oh! and we've got venom in this chapter and that's kinda cool. i think.


	14. intake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seraphina and the kids begin to construct the Plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! I'm not dead!

Aviv Hadar cuts an imposing figure on the full-moon night.

Without Atara, without a Moondancer to ground her, the sickness that is the werewolf in her twists and twists until, instead of a wolf larger than a rhinoceros standing tall and proud during the blackest of the night, bathed in silver, instead of the calm, collected, friendly Aviv she shows to the children, she is somewhere in between herself as a wolf and herself as a “human”, both physically and mentally.

Instead of the usual, slightly sharper than a dog’s claws on normal paws, her front appendages are massive hands, with thick, steel-dark claws like fishing hooks, vaguely reminiscent of Akiva’s claws or those of a Spinosaurus. Instead of quick jokes and lighthearted smiles, her claws, barely hidden, itch for the blood of the wicked.

The ground seems to almost shake as she moves. Knuckles are pressed to the earth when she moves on all fours, to protect the sharpness of the claws. In the depth of the night, one might mistake her for a Minotaur, seeing the head of a bull instead of that of a wolf.

Aviv Hadar on a full moon with nobody to hold her back is the most dangerous Aviv Hadar that one could come across, save an Aviv Hadar protecting her Pack and those they care about, of course, because she is nothing if not protective.

It is as the sun rises, and the beast gives way to the woman, that she becomes approachable again.

“Hello, Aviv,” a soft voice whispers. It is less of a sound and more of a feeling, like the wind is threading itself through the tree leaves to get the message just right to be reached by her ears and hers alone.

Aviv is knowledgeable enough to know that this is not the wind, but the sound of ghosts, and she is familiar enough with this voice, but times a thousandfold, that the spirit is still recognizable.

“Hello,” she replies ever so softly. If a human walks by, a human that believed in the supernatural and was looking closely for it, they might see the few gentle shimmers that hang by the tall, wide-shouldered woman’s head. They would not hear the quiet voices of the spirits, who tell her of what they've seen, and they certainly do not hear Aviv’s near silent responses.

It is not a human that walks by, however, and it is not a stranger, either. Aviv smiles and beckons the man who is much more than he seems to be to follow her.

He does, looking cautiously over his shoulder.

“Why are you on this side of the country, exactly?” she whisper-hisses. The man scratches at the back of his head, and if Aviv didn't know the reason she'd swear to anything that would listen that the man has head lice.

Her eyes flicker up towards a familiar smear of color darting over the city skyscape, an even more familiar blur of blue and gray following that. She traces the latter- who is finally,  _ finally _ calling himself Frostwings again, she notices, and sighs.

“Vacation. Why the fuck do you think, Vi?” Eddie Brock snaps back. Aviv notes the shiny black goop starting to coalesce around his arms.

“Well, there are more people to take the fall here if your passenger is getting hungry,” she replies, “and you should probably tell them that they'll only hurt their teeth.”

Eddie nods.

“We don't have  _ that _ in common,” he says almost snappily, like he's arguing with the hitchhiker in his head. Aviv waits.

“Listen, Eddie. You're not the only one here who I'm having a superpowers commiseration talk with today. If you want to whine about how unfair life is, talk to Luke, he's basically me without all of the particularly lupine drawbacks,” she laughs, then turns dead serious, “but if you want a hit list, pay attention  _ now _ .”

Eddie’s eyes snap to hers, widening dramatically. Now it's Aviv’s turn to rub the back of her head.

“Well, it’s not- it's not a hit list. But I do need some help clearing out some of the worse offenders at the moment that Frosty up there thinks Webs won't be able to handle- scratch that, knows the kid isn't able to handle. And the Devil’s tied up with Fisk, same with his little friend group,” she admits.

“So, basically, you need our help to do whatever you're about to do,” Eddie says, “and clean up the remains.”

“I  _ need your help _ ,” she grinds out, “to  _ save a bunch of children. _ Specifically, from a group of humans that is more monstrous than you and Venom or I will  _ ever _ be.”

Eddie’s eyes widen again, and he nods. His eyes travel up towards where Aviv at least can see Frostwings and Spider-kid talking about something. Could be anything.

“Matts, you'd better not be neglecting Arik or I will kick your ass into next week myself,” she whispers, getting a startled laugh out of Eddie (and what she assumes is Venom), though she's almost entirely forgotten that they're there.

“So,” Eddie asks, a strange light into his eyes that Aviv finds familiar, “what’s the plan?”

“That,” Aviv replies, a fanged smile broadening on her face, “is something I've been  _ itching _ to tell you.”

-

Ezra Demeru thinks that Mattai is on another one of his bad ideas again.

The Frostwings costume being on the hook instead of in storage is the biggest clue, and Ezra can't really blame him for that one. He knows how superheroes think, how they think any possibly preventable death is their fault, how they think they can never retire.

But the smaller costume gives him pause. It's one that’s clearly made to grow, with a different, but similar logo to the Frostwings one, and the same countershading pattern that Ezra has always thought is complicated, but brilliant for a superhero that spends most of their patrolling time about a mile in the sky.

This one is a deeper gray. Ezra knows who it's meant for, and sighs.

_ ‘Well, at least they'll bond over something,’ _ he thinks, managing not to sigh out loud.

For now, Mattai will continue to watch over the spider-child, which means that Ezra has officially won the argument, and Mattai recognizes that it's a kid under that mask, which is far more efficient at hiding his identity (what with the mask itself’s fabric even masking his voice a bit) than Tai’s only really ceremonial lenses, which rely more on the fact that absolutely zero members of the Demeru family or anyone else who would actively recognize him (since wing patterns aren't a suitable replacement for fingerprint evidence and his face-shape, like all of theirs, changes shape so much when he makes himself human) are particularly interested in getting him arrested than actually hiding his identity in a meaningful way.

“Why'd you choose Frostwings?” he asks his cousin as the man steps through the doorway.

“I didn't. Some kids started calling me that and the name stuck. It's kinda dumb, but it is me,” his cousin laughs quietly, “but that's not why you're here, is it?”

“You plan to mentor the Spider-kid?” Ezra asks. Mattai shakes his head.

“My business is making sure he doesn't get himself killed before he turns eighteen. Can't let one of my best students die before he finishes high school, obviously,” he laughs. Ezra’s eyes widen. Mattai has always been protective of his students- especially of the ones he knows are listening to all of his lectures, taking notes, or trying their best. Ezra’s heard Mattai cry about not being able to help some of them, to have to watch his brightest fall for some of the dumbest of reasons.

For reasons for Mattai to take back up the role of New York’s cold, winged guardian, protecting a student with the same mindset is probably the most Mattai-like of them all.

“And the little suit?” Ezra asks.

“The Galebird suit? Aviv stopped by a couple of days ago, told me I should probably kick start any of my plans to train my brother. Apparently I'm going to need them soon,” he replies. Ezra nods. He has no idea as to why Aviv is likely saying that- there seems to be some strange rule that future-seers can't say something as it is- but he does know it is freaking Mattai- who is nothing if not protective, especially when it comes to children- out.

“Good luck,” Ezra tells his cousin, slipping out the window and into the breeze.

-

“So,” Seraphina says, eyes flicking carefully over the assembled group of students, “what's our plan, here?”

Said group of students is the largest the Planning Room has ever been, with the Original Seven (the Gryffindor third year girls, Fizz, and Ron), and Ginny, Neville, Luna, and Cedric rounding out their number.

They all look at each other uncomfortably. It is clear to Seraphina that nobody has actually thought of a plan.

Then, tentatively, Fizz raises her hand.

“We should probably tell your sister that you're alive,” she says, a peculiar flatness to her voice, like she thinks that observation should be obvious to everyone. Seraphina nods.

Cedric raises his hand, too. Seraphina uses hers to palm her face and stare at the occupants of the room between her spread fingers.

“Really, does  _ anyone _ have a plan?” she hisses out.

Cedric’s hand goes higher in the air. Seraphina, not taking her dominant hand off of her face, points with the other towards the teenager.

“We don’t have to tell anyone outside of this circle, so I say we don’t. Really, besides an appreciation for our education, nobody here actually owes this school anything. Our commitment ends after we leave. We’re paying astronomical tuition fees, we don’t need to trust them with our dearest secrets, too,” he says, no emotion creeping into his voice. He’s dead serious. Seraphina can tell.

“I have no commitment beyond teaching you kids. I’ve already made it clear to the Headmaster that while I may be teaching for a while, my commitment is not permanent. I agree with Cedric- there’s no reason for us to go out of our way to tell them what’s going on,” Seraphina hums.

“I third that. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m jumping ship as soon as I can. Family that actually cares about me? Hell  _ yes. _ My life has been in danger ever since day one, but it’s not gotten any better since I came here, and besides “hey, I don’t have to be around the Dursleys for any period of time anymore”, I have no real commitment either,” Ari adds. Hermione holds up four fingers. Ron shrugs, and holds up five.

“I’ve got my lot thrown in with the British wizarding government, but ditching might be a good way to make a point. Don’t make me regret this, Professor,” Neville jokes, holding up six fingers. Ginny holds up seven, bumping shoulders with Ron.

“I think we agree that the British Wizarding Government as-is is not fond of non-humans, or even humans from non-magical families, but wouldn’t it be better to actually say something about that instead of tucking tail and running?” Parvati asks. Luna nods frantically.

“I’m good with a riot,” Lavender says. Fay grins.

Ari’s eyes widen, and her smile could split her face.

“Alright. New plan,” she chirps, slamming her hands onto a coffee table that appears under her fingers to accentuate her point, “Some of us can still ditch, but while we’re stuck here, because we can’t transfer our credits, apparently, we make  _ as much noise as possible _ for the sake of the people who can’t ditch. Ayes for yes, Nays for no. Ayes?”

There is a chorus of such around the room. Ari narrows her eyes.

“Nays?”

The room is silent.

“Well, it’s decided, then. Who wants to disseminate the information amongst the populace?” Fay barks. Lavender and Parvati calmly look at each other, then back at the group.

“I think,” they say as one, “we’ve got this.”

-

They do, in fact, have it.

Like the Demeru family gossip ring that has developed over the centuries, while the most obvious purpose is clear- to spread gossip- the Hogwarts gossip ring’s true function (at least according to its most studious members) is to spread intelligence and retrieve it. And like the Demeru family gossip ring, it doesn’t take much to transition the ring from simple nonsense to active intelligence gathering and distribution.

Parvati needles the Hufflepuff girls first, through Susan. She provides the base of the Hogwarts ring, while Cedric gets them all a set of the major Wizamengot decisions. It’s a thick book, and they all comb through it with a keen eye, finding little inconsistencies wherever they go. The pile of papers slowly grows- minor things that Cedric pulls in and dumps on the coffee table. From court decisions, to arrest records, to birth and death certificates- basically everything in the public record from the last century finds its way to the Room of Requirement.

“You know, Mirsea Divalin is working on this herself,” Fizz notes, tapping the book. They all look up at her with smudged noses from writing notes for hours.

“We’re going to need to go by the book on this, Fizz. Hey, Fay? This is what I think it is, right?” Ari asks, tapping something with her finger. Fay squints. Her eyes widen in horror.

“If what you’re thinking is a massive violation of habeas corpus, you’re absolutely right. Didn’t we find the guy he supposedly killed during Transfiguration- alive- too?” she mumbles, shaking.

“Yeah. Yeah, we  _ did _ , didn’t we? That’s a habeas corpus violation. And  _ this _ one- that’s definitely illegal, right? Didn’t we find a law against political bribery like, ten minutes ago? Hey Ginny!” Ari calls. Ginny’s head pops up from another mound of copied lawbook.

“Yeah, it’s here, but it’s not provable. We’d need an actual paper trail, or a living witness,” she says, and taps the book again, “but on the plus side, House-Elves do count. I think Malfoy’s law-maked his way into a circle, here. I bet we could get Dobby to testify to attempted murder.”

“That’s not going to get people into a tizzy,” Luna says, slapping another pile of paper down on the coffee table, “but  _ this _ just might.”

Cedric makes a humming noise. They turn towards where he’s seated on the end of the long leather couch.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asks, leaning forwards. Luna’s smile is almost as carnivorous as Seraphina’s.

“What do you think it is?” she shoots back.

“Lucius Malfoy’s not filed his tax returns. Well, he has, they’re just way too small. Holy  _ fuck. _ Are we gonna pull a Frank J. Wilson?” Cedric shrieks, his voice going higher and higher.

The rest of the group gives him strange looks.

“What? He’s the guy that busted Al Capone. Ari, you’ve been around Americans for the longest, how do you not know this?” he asks. Ari shrugs.

“How do you  _ know this?” _ she asks in response. It’s Cedric’s turn to shrug.

“I’m looking to go into some kind of law enforcement. It’s kind of cool to me that the American revenue service was able to take down a mobster that everyone else had no hope of getting to.”

The occupants of the room nod in acknowledgement, and continue to crowd around the paper sheets. Luna grins even wider, and drags out several more books, slamming them down on the table as well.

“So who do we send this to that might actually do something about it?” Ari asks. Seraphina snaps her fingers.

“I think I know a lady.”

-

A woman in a long black duster, topped with an elegant top hat and leather gloves, with a peculiar kind of sparkle in her eye, specifically the kind that one has when one gets blackmail on someone they truly hate and the authorization to tear them into shreds for the sake of looking into it, turns around in a squeaky swivel chair to stare down Seraphina.

“Look, Jasper, I need-” the woman cuts her off with a wave of the hand.   
“You need my help, I know, I know. I never said I wouldn’t give it, of course. I hate Lucius Malfoy as much as you do and the option to take him down a peg really speaks to me, dear. But you’re going to have to relax just a little bit. If you want, Aviv has a couple proper journalists- nobody like that hag Skeeter, of course- but people I could put on the case just the same. I need  _ time,  _ Sera. It takes a while to be able to operate in the magical sector, even if I’m on the right side of the pond to begin with. You may think that auditors and the revenue service like doing paperwork, but we hate it as much as you do, we just are capable of inflicting it upon other people and take great pleasure in doing so. Listen, give me a month, and I should be able to get back to you about it. Still, in the meantime, do you have any journalists over there that  _ aren’t _ Rita Skeeter? I bet you could set someone on the Ministry for the whole Black debacle,” she sighs, leaning back into her chair, which protests with a squeak.

“Not really.”

“Well, I would suggest Brock, he’s kind of the best in Aviv’s little circle of investigative journalist friends, but  _ I  _ called her about it around last week and  _ apparently _ they’re both busy. I have a little handful here in Britain who would be more useful, of course. My little sister Spinel decided to go into that career- she goes by Amber Strong,” she offers. Seraphina nods.

“Thank you, Jasper. May I ask where I can find Spinel?” Seraphina asks. Jasper grins.

“She is one who spits fire where she walks, princess. You will find her where you will always find her- digging up the worst of secrets and bringing them to light. She will come to you, don’t you worry,” Jasper says. Seraphina can see a glimmer of who Jasper is behind this façade of an overzealous auditor. She can see the dragon who waits for nobody, the guard who knows better than to test the waters with herself.

Jasper sees Seraphina beyond her own human face as well. She sees the regal posture, the sharp eyes, the ruthlessness hidden behind protectiveness.

Like her sister, Seraphina is steel under velvet, or the half-grown antlers of an elk in spring.

She knows that Jasper knows that she needs this to happen, needs to stay ahead of her enemy.

Seraphina watches Jasper shuffle in her seat, watches as the dragon in a human shape fixes eyes of molten gold on her own, green like the scales of a mamba have been placed in her eyes.

“One question, though, old friend,” Jasper says.

“Go ahead,” Seraphina replies, cocking her head to the side like she’s daring Jasper to question her.

“What exactly are you planning to do, once you break the story out?” Jasper asks.  Seraphina smiles, but it is not the smile she’s shown to the humans while she’s been here. This smile is wide and vicious, filled with a carnivore’s teeth.

“Start a riot, hopefully. Or at least, that’s what the kids are planning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so Mattai (and the Venom subplot) is going to become more involved than I previously thought. I'll probably add Peter Parker to the character list at some point. As you can probably tell, I'm not the fondest of tony stark as a mentor/the "irondad" thing (I've always been more fond of the Batman style of mentoring: all hands on deck, at all times) so this is me giving Peter a mentor that "works" better (I intentionally crafted Mattai to have a more "lethal spiderman-y" form of fighting). He's heavily based upon Peter B. from Spider-verse (long term superhero, tired, kinda old, good with kids but vaguely scared...). Also it gives me an excuse for the "I'm not hungover!" bit in the next chapter, so eh.  
> The Requirement Team is set up! They have their plan! Spinel isn't going to be a major character, really.  
> I might phase in Seraphina's kids, but I dunno.


	15. starburst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> information sharing and getting ready to throw down with the magical british government

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow! i haven't updated this fic in like two months! Here's an update and y'all aren't getting chapter 16 until I'm done with 17.

“Are you okay?” Spencer asks, folding his legs under him as he sits on Cassius’s squishy couch. Cassius nods, but his breath shakes and his hand is up near his mouth, teeth chewing into his fingers nervously.

“He’s not,” Ian mutters. Cassius leans into his side, shaking slowly becoming more violent. He breathes deeply and brings his other hand up to his face, covering his eyes like it changes anything.

“I can see that,” Spencer shoots back, a hand on Cassius’s shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. I just- I just need a minute,” he whispers, “I- I’m sorry.”

Ian gives him a bit of a look.

“You’re off this case for a while, Cass. Don’t get snappy with me. We’re not going to expect you to go after this guy, and frankly, Cass, you’re not ready to face him. If you can figure out what’s going on in your head and push past it- great. You’re good at what you do and we could use your help. But Cassius, you’re not suddenly okay because you  _ want _ to be,” Ian says gently. Cassius nods, and sighs.

“Ian, I’m not going to dis- I’m not going to argue with that. If you- if you need my help for descriptions, or something, please ask. But I can’t- I can’t do this right now,” he mumbles.

Ian nods.

The three of them sit there in silence for a while. Cassius slowly stops shaking, and begins to sleep fitfully.

“Lowell really messed him up. You can’t tell on the surface most of the time, but back when we started working together he was one of the jumpiest kids I’d ever met. Smart, sure, but very, very skittish,” Ian says quietly. Spencer nods.

“And now that he’s back, the hard work just comes crashing down,” Spencer mutters.

“Yeah, that tends to be how it works, Reid. Word of advice- don’t ignore the red flags. And if someone tells you to keep certain details quiet and you don’t know  _ exactly _ why, that’s the biggest one,” Ian replies. Cassius, still asleep, manages to nod in assent.

-

Mattai’s jumps are long and fluid, like water poured sideways instead of down. He doesn’t quite match Peter in speed as he races along rooftops- the pendulum-swing is useful for a good reason- but he’s fast, and when he forgoes the ground altogether, he’s even faster than Peter.

He glides as smoothly as he runs and leaps- gentle, controlled movements like he’s not moving at all. He keeps an eye trained on the red and blue figure in his periphery.

_ You know, you have school in about half an hour, _ he flickers across his spots. He doesn’t have to repeat the message in spoken T’karian, and Peter doesn’t have to see the message either because he stops on top of a building and smacks himself in the head.

Mattai laughs and flies off. He also has school in about half an hour, though his duty is more of the teaching variety.

He makes it there more than on time, a bagel between his teeth and graded homework in his bag. Peter is already in the class, and gives him a little wave.

Mattai smiles back, and slumps down in his seat. Peter reminds him painfully of Arik- bright eyed, kind, and absolutely brilliant. He can’t let the kid get himself killed or worse. If that means stepping in and putting on his own mask and suit and keeping the kid out of trouble by any means necessary without specifically going to his aunt and getting  _ her _ to keep him from dying, he’ll step in.

“Hey, Mr. Chasen?” Peter asks when the other students begin to file in. The Mattai of ten months ago would likely have laughed his ass of at the concept of using his human stepfather’s surname to hide himself better, but Mattai doesn’t care anymore.

“Yes, Peter?” he asks tiredly.

“Why are you doing a video lesson now? You’ve never done a video lesson before,” Peter chirps.

“Well, I wasn’t tired enough to think I might be hungover minus any previous use of drugs or alcohol,” he replies flatly, then stiffens, eyes going wide.

“ _ Never _ repeat that, do you hear me?” he hisses as the class stares back at him, also a little in shock. They slowly nod.

-

Aviv folds herself carefully between the walls, so as not to draw attention from whoever is in control of the security feed. She breathes in quietly, brings her right arm forward, and slams it into the wall behind her.

There is a notable crunching noise as the wall gives way. Aviv clears away the bits and steps back through the hole she’s made. Eddie nods at her, and Aviv takes off running.

By the time anyone starts to react to her presence, a third of the cages are busted beyond repair and another third are on the way out via the fists of angry children.

There is a little girl- maybe a little older than Ari, probably around fifteen- with eyes like flashlights through amber. Aviv recognizes her- would recognize Michaela Simon’s daughter anywhere.

Davina stumbles through the hallways but still manages to scream loud enough to put a banshee to shame, deafening the guards long enough for Aviv to do her work.

She carves through them like a hot knife through butter. Fur replaces skin as a behemoth of a creature raises its mammoth paws, snarls from its wolf-face. Her steps make the hollow building shudder and quake.

A dart of black crosses the creature’s vision. Aviv regains enough control of her shape to direct it out the window, which she crashes through almost effortlessly.

The wolf-thing snarls for blood at the back of her head, but Aviv holds it high and stares, eyes the color of rubies on light, the color of a flashlight through wine, at those who would dare challenge her.

Children run past and around her in droves, like water around a rock outcropping. She is steady, and she is ancient. She is skin and on two legs alone again, but no less powerful.

The ground begins to quake beneath her feet.

Under the light of the new moon, Aviv howls with anger, howls out a warning.

_ Touch them _ , she is saying, with her eyes the color of their blood,  _ and I will rip your throats out. _

-

Spinel gives her an odd look at the choice of meeting place. Sera shrugs and indicates the castle behind them, framed in red by the morning sun, that only the two of them can see.

“So. How’s the fledgeling doing?” she asks, pinning Sera with golden eyes, fingers itching ever closer towards a knife as she regards some of the other patrons in the bar. Sera gives her a smile, and, unbeknownst to the others there, magical or no, flashes words across her spots to the dragon, who sits back in her chair and nods.

“Good. Anything you’d like to share? I want to keep this meeting brief, but trust me when I say it’ll be in the international papers by tomorrow morning.”

“Why international?” Sera asks, already knowing the answer. Spinel smirks.

“Well, why  _ not? _ I, personally, would love to air some dirty laundry, and the Ministry owns all of the actually read British papers almost in their entirety. Who, however, should be my correspondent? I need to say I’ve gotten this information from someone,” she purrs.

“If you have to, say Cedric Diggory. He received the information in the first place, so it wouldn’t even technically be a lie, though we’d rather he not be mentioned. The only thing we require of you is to… avoid mentioning certain details about how the trial transcripts for the ‘imperiused’ Death Eaters fell into your hands. They are public, the MOM is absolutely idiotic in that regard- but the unredacted versions are from a mutual friend of ours.”

Spinel’s smile grows wider.

“This is going to set the fox amongst the hens, isn’t it?” she chuckles, running her fingers down the documents, careful not to smudge the ink.

“That’s our intent, Amber,” Sera chuffs, eyes flickering for just a single moment from something human to something clearly anything but.

“Please. You of all people know my real name,” Spinel responds, leaning forward in her seat with a conspiratorial grin. Sera purrs.

“See you soon,” she says.

“The article should be out by next week, dear. Keep an eye out for- oh, nevermind, it will be pandemonium anyways, hard to miss.”

The dragon slips away with a new fire alight in her eyes, sliding between patrons and tourists, until she finds a wall that is not a wall. The gateway allows her through easily, and shuts behind her, per her request.

A lone Auror apparates into town behind her. But even if he was looking- well, Spinel has far more eyes than he will ever possess.

-

True to her word, Spinel’s exposé hits the papers within the week. Sera’s not sure what kind of international paper circulated it first (she’s thinking some sort of magical division of the New York Times), but it’s been picked up by just about everyone.

_ What Do You Do When Your Government Is In Shambles? _ is the title, posted under Amber Strong. Her sources are credited as anonymous, but reliable.

She rips at a handful of things, but only uses a fraction of the dirt gifted to her. Sera wonders why this is until she spies several lines at the end.

_ This corruption goes deeper, of course. I could speak of Sirius Black’s lack of trial, of the multiple members of the Wizamengot that are confirmed Death Eaters (such as Lucius Malfoy- the star of his own article later this week). I could speak of the wretched treatment of Muggleborns at the hands of quote-unquote “pure-blooded” aristocrats- namely over a dozen sexual assault and rape cases  _ in the past year _ that have never been brought to trial, and “hazing” that is nothing short of a hate crime- but these topics all deserve to be covered in detail. _

_ And they will be. _

_ I can promise you that. _

_ This is only the beginning. _

Sera laughs her ass off in the middle of breakfast that morning, a heartly cackle that sends a few of her fellow staff members into a fright.

“Time for the reckoning to begin. On your own head be it,” she whispers, eyes aflame.

-

There is an immense kind of noise that day. The “pure-blooded” students, for the most part, are fine, but certain students are up in a tizzy, especially the Slytherins, who scream that it’s not true. Seraphina can hear Ari cackling quietly from the Gryffindor table, sees Luna grin like a shark from the Ravenclaws, and Cedric hide his shaking laughter as he runs his fingers over the pages. The documents are attached, and the students read through them with a fervor. There’s a few testimonies, too, from victims.

And like Spinel says, teeth and claws hidden behind miles of paper but still felt so very vividly, this is just the beginning.

Dumbledore seems to have taken on an ashen look. She knows that he knows exactly what is going on, and she knows he is likely wondering if this is to be their end- burned up from the inside as they fight one another, collapsing in agony like the death throes of some great beast.

That would be fitting, she considers. It would be fitting for the magicals of Britain to feel themselves at the whim of some far greater power, needled and prodded until they collapse under their own weight- they’ve done it to so many other countries. But T’karians do not believe in claiming something that is not theirs to begin with, and there is nothing here for them to steal even if they did. They will not allow the magicals of Britain to collapse under their own idiocy.

This, really, is just a way to prevent that from happening, though in a more “pitchfork and torches” way than those who would rather sit and count their gold were hoping for.

Her eyes flicker around the room once again as the chaos reaches a height. If this was a normal situation, this would be the time to slip away.

Seraphina shrugs and sips her coffee.

-

“Care to tell me why our dear cousin sees it fit to cause all sorts of chaos in the UK?” Mattai asks, eyes sliding to Akiva, who yawns and shuffles himself again. The former guard and current teacher gives a loud snort at the bored demeanor of the general, who has curled himself up over the heater like a snake on a warm rock.

“What, I’m  _ cold,” _ he hisses. Mattai laughs fully this time, stretching a wing over himself.

“Seriously, though,” he prods. Akiva sighs.

“One of the little ones convinced her to overturn some very embedded stones in the ground. Most of the brats we know want to ditch-”

“Akiva, I don’t know the kids. All I know is what Ezra has been telling me,” Mattai cuts in. Akiva shoots him a glare for interrupting.

“No, but I know them, and most of the kids are wholly uninterested in staying over there. They might come to the States, they might go to T’kari, they might wander off into the great wide universe and never come back. The important part is that they need to be able to decide what they want for themselves- they haven’t been able to for such a long time,” he says. Mattai nods, before leaping off the building in a sort of over exaggerated line that Akiva can tell means that the older T’karian has taken up “hero work” again. He leaps after his cousin, catching up in less than a moment.

Mattai sighs, and touches down, tail lashing aggressively.

“What is so desperate you need to keep me here for, Akiva? I have a job, you know,” the man growls. Akiva flares his wings out in an equally aggressive maneuver.

“Matty,” he starts, voice slipping into something gentle and kind and soft that he is really used to now, ever since becoming a parent all those decades ago. It feels weird to use it on someone older than himself, but Mattai hasn't had nearly the same kind of responsibility thrown upon his shoulders.

In short: Akiva has grown up. Mattai has not- well, really, he has- just not as much as Akiva.

It's funny, considering only a few centuries separate them. Akiva thinks of it that way, at least.

Mattai calms almost immediately, a high-pitched, frustrated screech bubbling out of his throat.

“Just keep the kids safe, Matts. That's all I'm asking. That, and take care of yourself, cousin. You need it.”

Mattai nods and flies off again, this time back home. Hopefully, he will take Akiva’s advice, and get some sleep.

-

There is a quiet noise as Mattai touches down on the roof of the school, ears flicking each and every way to ascertain that he is entirely alone.

He’s not. He hears a familiar noise- like air being let out of a canister, a harsh, rapid sound that to his trained ears sounds like movement.

There is also a familiar shriek, a happy one, and out of the corner of his eye, Mattai sees red and blue. To his vision, that of an aerial carnivore with a very strong prey drive, it’s almost in slow-motion, the same as the little flicks of a pigeon’s wings as it takes flight, startled by the young hero.

“Hello, kid,” Mattai says warmly. Peter smiles, and starts chattering about something he’s seen on the way there. He freezes in place as Mattai brings up his tail stiffly, like he’s about to make a jump. Mattai’s ears are pointed forwards and on alert- a good thing, too.

“Two blocks over and one south,” he hisses. Peter nods rapidly and begins to swing off, while Mattai jumps directly off the building, unfurling his wings impressively.

They get there in time, thankfully. Initially, it looks like some guy in a fancy suit was just harassing a non-human girl.

As it turns out, the number of mutants and other in the alleyway is significantly higher than just one. It’s about fourteen or fifteen, if Mattai is right, and they’re all shaking like leaves. Peter’s eyes go wide and sad- Mattai can watch as the light leaks out of them. He knows what has happened to these children.

A girl, with deep dark eyes that wraps her arms around the orange-eyed girl’s shoulders like a scarf and dares them to tell her to back off, steps forwards.

“My name is Ariela Cohen,” she says, and Mattai thinks of how odd it is that he is meeting this strange girl also named for the lions far before his own cousin.

“Call me Frostwings, or Frosty, if you want to make it simple. You were with Aviv not too long ago, yes?” he asks them all. Ariela.2 again takes initiative and nods for the group.

“Yes- she just left when you arrived. My mother lives here, in New York,” the girl with the orange eyes whispers, and Mattai starts when he recognizes the shade- a sign that the pup is from a very familiar Moondancer bloodline.

“I know where to find a safe place,” he whispers, gesturing for them to follow him with his tail. They do, ever so carefully, and Mattai realizes that there are far more telepaths than previously thought in the group because the attention of the city goers is diverted seamlessly. He notes that Aviv is following him at a distance.

He knocks on the door softly. The woman, with long, dark hair streaked liberally with gray, but still far less than if she aged like a human would, opens the door, eyes of liquid gold narrowing, then widening. She ushers them inside.

“Hello, Captain Sokol,” he says gently. The woman laughs, warm skin like tawny gold stretching around her face as she does so.

“Please, old friend. You know it is Ziva here,” she replies. Mattai ducks his head. He remembers. He remembers how this woman is a firestorm hidden by the night, how she is a force of nature like those that have come before her. He remembers how she stands her ground, remembers blood in the snow and howling in the breeze on winter nights, remembers burning compounds and a reputation equal to an angel of death.

She is an avenger, even more than those who call themselves by that name. She is the textbook definition, watching those she cares for crumble around her and taking the price back in blood. And yet, here she is, with a gentle look on her face and the fire still burning in her eyes, like there is a Molotov Cocktail exploding inside her skull.

There is a cry, and the girl with the orange eyes slams into Ziva. Her hair runs down her back and around her limbs as she shifts. Ziva coos gently, her own wolf-shape one of the oddest Mattai has ever seen. It reminds him of a honey badger, just a little bit. The little one shares the same odd patterning, which isn’t surprising. Ziva’s brother is the girl’s- Davina’s- maternal grandfather, after all. It’s not too far fetched to think that they could have some physical similarities.

The other children slowly file into the living room. Mutants, non-humans by birth, non-humans by transition, and everyone in between looks to the oldest among them. Mattai grins back.

Kisaya, who has stayed silent for now but has listened to the collection of children circling her wife and her old friend with mild interest, looks in from the next room, sighs, and smiles.

“We’re going to have to call in a few favors if we want to house them all, you know.”

“I know. Call me in a week or two and we can move them somewhere safer, but…” he trails off.

“They’ll trust Ziva, because they trust Davi, here,” the Moondancer finishes with a nod.

“Exactly.”

-

Ariela  _ Potter, _ all the way across the ocean, finds out within the week.

Nobody is trying to hide it from her, of course, so Mattai first tells Ezra, a fine choice considering where the man lives, who tells Akiva who tells Talia, who makes the active decision to tell Zira, who tells Neviah who tells Kviziach who tells Keziah who, of course, tells Ari.

It’s would be a far more flawed system than it is if it isn’t as fast as it is. But it all happens very, very quickly, despite the delay between Mattai telling Ezra and Zira telling Neviah.

“So,” Ari says, turning in the spinning-chair in the Room as the rest of the group looks at her, “What are we gonna do about this?”

Seraphina stands, hands out.

“Isn’t it obvious? We need to help as we can. I’ll ask a few friends if there are any of these… detention centers… within close range, we can pass along information to get the kids out and bring them here, or to the wolf’s base of operations.”

“Good. Okay. Now we have a plan. Excellent. Now the question is- how do we execute it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really need to work on updating more regularly, but basically I have 16 done but I'm not posting it until 17 is done, as a just-in-case measure. but anyways this one is done and I'll probably update eat the rocks before Endgame (hopefully, at least).  
> it took me all of this time SPECIFICALLY to finish 16 so hopefully 17 won't be as much of a pain.  
> Also! Did y'all notice this is a series now? I'm writing a Cass & Ian numb3rs-centered fic called "hit the ground running". when will i post it? who knows. certainly not me.


	16. boom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ari starts to get a clue as to just what the hell is going on with the Demeru family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one took much less time than fifteen, which I think is good

“So, have you met the cousin we’ve been talking about yet?” Ron asks. Ari shakes her head.

“If you would like to hear about what Mattai is like, you could just ask,” Seraphina purrs. Ari whips her head around so fast that she hears several popping noises. She looks almost like an owl, staring at her aunt over her own shoulder, except unlike an owl, it takes significant effort and looks absolutely bizarre.

“Mattai,” she begins, “Is quite possibly the most self-righteous of our cousins. He is my age, but looks as old as my sister does, like how Akiva looks older than he should. He was the Captain of the Guard for nearly as long as Maya has been-well- I won’t say for now, and he took retirement… badly, to say the least. We’ve been insisting that he does something else for centuries, but once he finally caved, he got a younger brother, and unlike most of us, he’s spent the primary portion of his life as an only child.”

Ari looks to her, curiosity written across her face. It is not because of the fire dancing around her eyes like a mask, or the far-off look she has in her stare.

It is not what she looks like, but rather, the regality that blows off of the woman in waves in that moment. It is not the kind of regality that most human royalty wears, filled with crimes against humanity stacking gold in their coffers. It is not the regality of dragons either, with violence from their own hands, though it is closer, with the same sort of power below the surface.

But while dragons wear their power openly, Ari finds that this is the first time she has properly understood the gravity of what her family name means. The strength has been hidden behind human faces and gentle smiles, and will be hidden again.

But for a moment, Ari sees the vibrance of a leader in her cousin’s eyes, sees the elegance of a princess and a diplomat, the weight on the shoulders of a younger sister of a Queen.

She doesn’t know why she feels like she’s in the presence of royalty- not yet. That will come in time, as will most things. But for now, at least, Ari sees strength, and knows why many fear the name of Seraphina Demeru.

-

Mattai finds that it is very hard to shake a Moondancer who does not want to be shaken, and her teleporting, levitating friends? Well, he already has one tail, a few more aren’t too bad.

Peter has been taking the fact that they have a few shadows following them around less in stride, but even he has to admit that at the very least, Maxwell and Nina are adorable.

The former is the levitating teleporter- Maxwell Stone- a young boy who Mattai hasn’t seen without a pair of sunglasses on (and, from experience, he’s pretty sure he knows exactly why that is). He has a quiet voice, and his teleportation is even quieter. Mattai can see why whoever it was that took the kids in the first place would have an interest in him- near silent teleportation is seen by most to be entirely impossible.

Nina is several years younger than Max, with wide eyes and  _ vibrating _ hands that betray her true talent. Her powers are familiar- Mattai remembers at least what he’s heard about the silver blur, the Witch’s brother. She is the fastest thing he’s ever seen, and when she runs, it reminds Mattai just a little bit of an animation smear.

They’re good at following. Max doesn’t leap from rooftop to rooftop like Mattai when he’s looking for something specific, nor does he swing around like Peter, but he does make excellent time, popping along on occasion when he can’t hear anyone around.

Nina, of course, just runs, and runs, and runs. She has the energy that most children her age do, the kind that doesn’t have a shut-off valve and would normally become far worse in the presence of sugar. He sees a bit of Arik in her, in the boundless smiles and the fact that both are far too smart for their own good.

He knows enough to be calm as they approach. Mattai can recognize trauma when he sees it, and the group of children are most certainly traumatized.

Peter, thankfully, follows his lead.

-

“So, how are the fledgeling set doing?” the woman in the mirror asks. Hermione smiles, and begins to gesture and talk excitedly, before something catches her eye.

It is the moon, shining down behind Jay’s head.

One sixth and a man ten thousandfold. The moon is one sixth the size of earth- one of the major reasons it can affect the tides the way it does, and the Man in the Moon would certainly fit the description of the man in the clue.

“Moon. The answer is moon,” she blurts out. Jay blinks, then smiles, then nods.

“Yes, dear.”

“Jellyfish… moon? Moon jelly?” she tries.

“Closer.”

“The scientific name of the Moon Jelly is Aurelia aurita,” Hermione pushes, and Jay nods again.

“Even closer, hon.”

“Aurelia?” Hermione asks. Jay snorts and shakes her head.

“No, but very close.”

That leaves only one option.

“Your name,” she says, voice trembling, “is Aurita.”

“That is correct,” Jay- Aurita- replies, and with a snap of her fingers, the illusion behind her disappears. Instead, there is the swaying of kelp at the seabed, light trickling down through the fronds.

“Okay, so what are we gonna do now, Jay?” Hermione asks. Jay smiles.

“Call me Ritz, you’ve earned it. Now,” she whispers, a conspiratorial look in her eyes, bones stretching and crunching until she is something entirely unrecognizable, “we can start on the more  _ interesting _ aspects of your magic.”

Hermione sits back, staring at the enormous eye of the tremendous serpent in front of her, and chokes out a garbled “what?”

“Oh, relax, dear, your friend’s cousin told my uncle who told my mother who told me that you needed a tutor in the art of water magic. And  _ yes, _ that is a long workaround-list, you should know by now that that’s how we roll here.”

It’s a few seconds before Hermione’s brain reboots, and she settles back down.

“Yeah, that is how we roll, isn’t it?”

-

“Okay, but what the  _ hell, _ Avi?” Atara asks, squeezing the shoulder of her wife, who looks up at her with adoring eyes nonetheless. Atara  _ knows _ that look, the one that screams  _ Please be proud of me. _

She is proud of Aviv, of course, but she does wish that the person that she trusts with her life and her heart would trust her with this.

“‘Tara, relax, honey. You would have been an asset, yeah, but they had the Simon kid- you know the one- there, and she’s your several-greats grand-niece, remember? You would have gone ballistic for those kids, and she would have pushed you over the edge. We needed in and out, and I love it when you kick ass but you do not do it  _ quickly _ .”

“They had Michaela?” Atara hums, then shakes her head. Michaela Simon is an adult- it must be a little sister, or something.

“I know we’re technically immortal, Tara, but really? You don’t remember Davina’s naming?  _ You _ dragged me to it after we heard Mick had a daughter. And Mattai says he found them in the city and got them to Ziva, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

Atara sits down gracefully in her chair, reaches her mind out to her wife, and shatters the glass that she holds with a single squeeze of her hand.

Aviv gives her a curious stare, but otherwise doesn’t say anything. They’ve both broken their fair share of glasses, and she knows that Atara doesn’t mean anything by it. The scent in the air changes, a sort of panic replacing the mild irritation, and with it, Aviv’s demeanor changes too.

“It’s alright, Tara. They’re safe, my love- Ziva has them,” she whispers. Atara’s face changes from stoic to anything but in a fraction of a second, and Aviv holds her while her wife shakes, tears dripping down her cheeks.

She’s seen what Aviv has seen. Shit.

“Well, if anyone can keep them safe, it’s the Demon of the Alps,” she finally whispers, “Ziva will kill anyone who tries to get at them again. I will too, I think. Will they be moved?”

“Yes, upstate to Westchester when they can be. Ezra said they’re making space,” Aviv says softly, stroking the hair out of Atara’s eyes.“Good. Good. They’ll be safe.”

-

Ariela finds that her joy in Quidditch and broom flight has faded, just a little bit. Obviously, it’s better than being ground-bound, and she still adores her broom-

But, she finds, now that she can fly without her beloved Nimbus, the appeal of Quidditch dims.

The Snitch still has some sort of magnetic draw, like it’s calling out to her. She finds it easier and easier to track and catch it these days- tracking especially. It is like the whole world slows down for a moment as she spins to adjust her position.

She tells this to Fizz, who laughs.

“What do you think the claws are for, nestling?”

Ari thinks she understands.

Of course, she really doesn't. No child raised believing they were human would understand the intricacies of catching their own prey the T’karian way, with fast-paced, vibrant chases that put both falcons and birds of paradise to shame.

It’s rare for human-raised nestlings to behave like those raised in T’kari. It’s rare for human-raised nestlings to Manifest at all, really. Usually, they hide themselves, nothing pushing them to call on their deeper natures to protect themselves.

But the Demeru family and the Potters alike have always attracted their fair share of trouble, and combining the two is disaster in the making.

Ari knows little of this. She is a child- an inquisitive one, maybe, but far less so than her two friends.

If one were to ask Seraphina, who watches from the sidelines with a careful eye and smiles as her friends, hiding dragon scales beneath skin like they always have, wreak havoc with the magical British populace, she would say that the three of them are a force to be reckoned with in the making, one that reminds her painfully of her sister’s close friends.

Seraphina Demeru watches with pained eyes as her (cousin? Niece? Who knows)  _ student _ learns to navigate the world with eyes like an eagle’s (like she should have years ago) and feels shame.

She is not ashamed of the fledgeling- far to the contrary.

No, Seraphina Demeru is ashamed of herself. She is a coward, and she has not searched for her sons- only across an  _ ocean,  _ a body of water she has crossed so many times that she cannot count.

They probably think she’s dead. Her sisters likely think this, too- and everyone else except for who the Gedhi child (who Sera feels should really not be with them, so far from home) has decided to inform.

There is a gentle clicking noise to her right, and Seraphina smiles through teary eyes as the nestling narrows hers, and reaches a clawed hand out.

_F-I-Z_ _told me,_ her spots flicker. _You should talk to them._

_ ‘I will,’ _ she thinks,  _ ‘I will.’ _

_ You know, _ she starts again, light dancing across her skin and wings,  _ The family I was living with before- the D-U-R-S-L-E-Y-S? Emotionally abusive, physically abusive, and neglectful. It has taken a while to come to terms with that fact. _

_ I really don’t know what to say to that, A-R-I-E-L-A, _ she says back. Sera wonders if Ari understands exactly how she’s saying with her spots what she is at the moment. She doubts the nestling does.

_ So you know when I say that sometimes family is important, I am not ignoring the bad things. _

Sera sighs, and smiles, wiping her eyes with one hand.

“Pursuit flying. That’s what we’ll work on today,” she says finally in English. Ari blinks and tilts her head curiously. From where they are standing, at least a few hundred meters away, Sera can see Fizz’s ears tilt more dramatically in their direction and her tail begin to lash excitedly.

“Who’s the bait?” Ari asks. Sera grins at her, and pulls something golden and shiny out from her bag. Ari’s immense eyes widen further as the Snitch’s wings unfurl. She twitches like a housecat ready to strike. Sera holds back a laugh.

Fledgelings are nothing short of adorable.

She tosses the snitch up into the air, and immediately is blown back by Ari’s powerful downstroke as the gains altitude. The fledgeling shimmers out of sight, like she is made from molten glass and is melting away.

Seraphina Demeru smiles, rolls her eyes, and, finally, picks up her phone.

-

Mattai watches with a faint smile on his face as Arik follows him, carefully picking his way over the rooftops of the city. He doesn’t seem to know that Mattai has seen him, and still attempts to hide himself as best he can.

Peter hides a snort from the next roof over. Mattai flashes him a warning across his spots irritably, and turns back to where Arik was.

He’s not there. Instead, a surprisingly heavy weight drops right onto Mattai’s shoulders.

“Hah! I told you I could do it! He thought that I thought he couldn’t see me and he brought his guard down!” Arik calls, leaping from Mattai’s shoulders to a higher part of the roof.

Next to him are Max and Nina, neither of whom are wearing anything to disguise their identity.

Mattai laughs- not a human laugh, but a deep, honest chuffing noise that would remind most listening to the friendly greeting of a tiger.

Arik grins, and looks towards Max and Nina again.

_ Follow me, _ his spots say, and they do. Mattai sighs contentedly, and shakes his head.

Long claws dig into the brick as he hauls himself up again, ears pricked for danger.

-

Ariela hears a familiar sound- almost like the wind over the wings of an airplane- and smiles, before her face curls into a vague frown. She doesn’t recognize the purple markings on this one’s wings.

The purple-winged (yeah, she’s going with that) T’karian flares out her wings at the last possible second. Ari’s frown turns into a grin again- she knows now what makes a good flier and what doesn’t, and this woman is definitely a good flier.

“Ah, you’re the little one,” she chirps, folding and arranging her wings so that they don’t touch the ground.

“Who are you?” Ari asks. The purple-winged lady laughs heartily.

“Keziah Tavi,” she replies. She smells like ozone- like Ari herself does- and the lightning curls around her fingers. Her eyes widen and her body tenses as Seraphina enters the clearing.

She pauses, as if to say something, but is kept silent by a glare from the older woman, who tilts her head in recognition.

“It is good to see you, Kezi,” she hums, a warm sound that rumbles around in her chest.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” she purrs. Ariela hides just a bit of a frown. She’s not really sure if Sera understands just how much she needs to simply settle into a routine at this point, and the woman keeps proving that, without a doubt, she does not. She’s not sure if any of the Demerus really know what do do with her, this half-human fledgeling with more trauma under her belt than most adults. She gets the faint feeling that she was far closer to dealing with it in Virginia than she ever was with her cousins, despite how much they care for her.

There is a sinking feeling in her chest at that realization. She feels awful, but she knows it’s true.

-

“Well, this is going nowhere,” Spencer mutters. There’s a grunt of agreement from Mordechai, who is still flipping through files. He’s the only one that’s been working on this case full-time, since he’s the only one that isn’t working on anything else.

Ian was driven away from the Lowell case first, drifting back towards Cassius, who doesn’t seem to be coping very well. The BAU as a unit were next- assigned to more concrete sorts of serial cases- but, back then, they were still drifting back on weekends to discuss.

The first one of the weekends group who left, surprisingly, was Gideon, followed quickly by Elle and Hotch. Morgan had stayed nearly as long as Garcia and Reid had, but there was other work to be done.

Now, the Lowell case is Mordechai’s and Garcia’s and Reid’s, and Reid is tired beyond belief.

“We know, Spence,” Garcia hums. Mordechai gets up, stretches, and opens a window.

“Where are  _ you _ going?” Spencer asks him. Mordechai sighs, and places a foot on the windowsill.

“To find our only eyewitness. I don’t need him to help beyond giving us a little more to go on, because I am about one death away from asking about what kind of forms I need to sign to order a hit squad, and we don’t even have those anymore.”

“Officially,” Garcia chirps. Mordechai smiles his toothy smile, the one that still makes Spencer just a little bit scared.

“Officially. Now, I’m off to go find our witness, and I do believe you both have to get back to your real jobs,” he hums, before rolling lazily out of the window.

“Since when has he been so friendly to us?” Garcia mutters aloud. Spencer shrugs.

-

Everything seems to be at DEFCON 1 for every other sector of her life (to say nothing of her growing unease with what she’s slowly understanding might be her very  _ royal _ family), so Ari doesn't really pay more attention than needed to what’s happening in the school.

Sure, the group that continues to meet in the Room of Requirement is technically part of the school (even though they haven’t made much progress on the ‘is there facilities like the one Hadar hit in the UK’ front), but Ari doesn't count that.

They’ve finally dragged Seamus and Dean into their little group, rounding it out from twelve (counting Fiz and Sera) to fourteen.

Their table has expanded in size accordingly, as has the general size of the room. Luna has begun sneaking lake fish into a newly-materialized, absolutely frigid freshwater tank in the corner.

It’s calm, in the Room of Requirement. The rest of the school does not follow this pattern in  _ any  _ capacity.

The end of term is coming up soon, and the professors are still running around like headless chickens trying in vain to control the fact that Amber Strong is still writing to every single magical newspaper that she can get her claws into.

They don’t have control over that, obviously, which is of great amusement to the Requirement team, but of great aggravation to say, Snape, who has been viewing them with intense suspicion whenever they all run off in the same general direction.

Ari can understand it- there’s a lot of kids who go missing at the same time now- herself, Ron, Hermione, Lavender, Padma, Fay, Luna, Seamus, Dean, Neville, Ginny, and Cedric, and they’re thinking about adding more to the roster on top of that. They really need a way to get into the Room and sneak information to Strong without getting caught, but for now, they will enjoy the chaos.

Until, of course, they’re called into Dumbledore’s office. Well, not all of them- just Ari, Ron, and Hermione.

Dumbledore swings around in what Ari believes is a freshly transfigured swivel chair (something that he’d probably thought of specifically for this purpose) and gives them all a fixed stare.

Ari knows the feeling of someone probing in her head now, and whatever Dumbledore’s doing, it’s not that. She thinks that this is probably just some sort of intimidation tactic. He probably doesn’t know anything.

“By any chance, does Ms. Strong have any… how would you say, dirt? On Hogwarts?”

Well, there goes  _ that _ idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! so seventeen will be out once I finish chapter eighteen (eighteen features the Hufflepuff match), but anyways: since I've already introduced basically every auxiliary original character, this is the last chapter with a major focus on, say, what Mattai and Aviv are doing. Later chapters may mention this, but ONLY in regards to the "virginia team" or the "great britain team". Mordechai, Cassius, and Fizz are going to become the only real constant-fixture original characters soon enough, which means the pain in the ass that is juggling everyone is over! I can simplify this story down some and actually put some Criminal Minds (plus mordechai as a sniffer dog who doubles up as a person I guess) cases back into the Criminal Minds crossover!  
> Yes, this does mean less "holy shit she's royalty" stuff, but she's a half-human and incredibly low on the succession list anyways- the main reason everyone was up in arms in the first place is that she's family at all, but if she asks them to back off, they will.


	17. scatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get the Conversations. which is unfortunately all this chapter really is BUT they're conversations that all needed to happen so I feel less weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my G-d two chapters in two days what on Earth am I doing

It’s a cold morning in early November when Cassius Blackwood gets the call.

It’s fast-paced and panicked to begin with, words flowing from one to another faster than he can really comprehend, and he waits for a minute or two for the pup to calm herself down enough so that he can actually understand what she’s saying. He catches something about Dumbledore- he wonders how the old man is doing- but it’s quickly drowned out by a million other things.

“Can I stay with you and Ian over winter break?” she asks suddenly, “I trust Akiva, and Sera, and Fizz, but-”

“But you feel like you need to be in actual civilization,” he hums in response.

“Yeah- well, not exactly,” she says, chuckling quietly, “it’s more- he’s great, but I feel like they’re a bit high-strung right now, and I’m- I’m not Miriam or Hadassah. I can’t just ignore the fact that they’re basically gearing up for war.”

“I understand. Yeah, feel free to stay with me, and if not me, I’m sure one of your profiler friends would be perfectly happy to have your back,” he replies, making sure to keep his voice soft.

“I- I just- thanks. Thank you. Please don’t tell the Continentals I don’t want to make them feel bad I just-”

“Need to be somewhere that’s not there?” he hums.

“Yeah. It’s not anything they’re doing wrong, they’re just- it’s just awkward, you know? Even Fizz is easily into her hundreds and she tries, I know she does. But I- I need-” she stops, and sighs.

“I get it, pup. I really do. My door is always open, you know that, right?”

“Yeah- yeah, I know. Just wanted to make sure. They’re great, but sometimes I think they don’t really know what to do with me, and I know they’re trying, I really do-”

“But you think you’re being an inconvenience. I know the feeling. It’s weird, knowing someone who’s older than the country you were born in, isn’t it?”

“Oh, ab- ab- definitely, and please stop interrupting me- oh, I’m sorry,” Ari says through a fit of giggles. Cassius doesn’t know what was so funny about that, but he thinks it’s a T’karian thing.

“You’re all good, kid. You can come back here whenever you like. I’ll talk to Akiva,” he hums gently, careful not to interrupt her while she’s requesting him not to. There’s a click on the other end of the line- Ari has hung up.

Cassius has the feeling that she’s still not telling him something, but it can wait- he doesn’t like to pry unless it’s absolutely necessary and he already feels bad enough. Truth be told, he really does get it, but knows she didn’t mention the real reason over the phone.

Cass knows trauma, knows that she needs somewhere more stable and conducive to healing than the Continental base, no matter if Miriam and Hadassah are there or not. She needs pack she chooses, and fewer new people.

He sighs, and scrolls through his contact information again. He’d rather not have to personally explain this to Akiva- the man has a very low chance of actually getting it-, but the pup ( _ his _ pup, or the closest thing to it, he thinks to himself) has asked him to, and he understands non-confrontationalism to a T.

-

“Well, that went well.”

“Shut up, Hermione,” Ariela says with a dramatic sigh, and puts her head into her hands, “I just need- I just need time with- I guess ‘a more stable group’ would be the words.”

“Probably not. The words, I mean. You’d probably do well under the care of Blackwood and Edgerton,” Hermione replies.

“Why didn’t you mention that before?” Ari asks her, eyes narrowed. Hermione brings up her hands to feign surrender.

“Because you were  _ happy. _ You got to hang out with cousins that don’t want to literally murder you. But I really don’t think you want to live on an alien planet full-time,” Hermione hums. Ari frowns, and nods.

“I- I don’t know. I guess I have plenty of time to figure out the T’karian side of this- thousands of years if I take after that side of the family-”

“But a limited time to figure out what’s going on when it comes to the Earth side of things,” Hermione replies, going back to her book with a sly smile upon her face. Ari sighs and sinks down into her bed. Fizz gives her a strange look as she walks in, but just shrugs.

“I get it, you know. You don’t have to stay with them all the time,” she hums. Ari sits up quickly, nervousness bleeding into her expression.

“How did you-”

“You talk loud,” Fizz interjects, and wiggles her ears for emphasis. Ari sighs again, this time in resignation.

“Are you going to try to convince me to stay with them?” she asks. Fizz blinks in surprise, and immediately pokes Ari in the face.

“I literally  _ just _ said that I was  _ not _ going to do that and you go and assume that’s what I’m trying to get you to do. Ari, I get it. The Demerus are an absolutely bonkers family and I don’t think you even know the half of it. Most members split off into insular groups by the time they’re adults because they just can’t deal with it anymore. Yes, it’s primarily composed of badasses- at least when it comes to the adults, it is-, but do you have  _ any _ idea how strict the hierarchy is? The answer to that question is a strong  _ very. _ They might not enforce it much but I’ve not met a single Demeru that wasn’t one of Miala’s daughters or grandchildren- and even  _ that _ is a stretch considering that four out of five of her grandsons also flew the coop- that was on T’kari full-time. Most of them scatter. As long as you’re with someone who will keep you safe,  _ they will understand, _ ” she says, then takes a breath for a gulp of air.

“Wait, who’s Miala?” Ari asks, afraid that she’s going to have to memorize even more names, now.

“Queen Maya’s mother, along with Seraphina’s, and Naftali and Ezra’s grandmother,” Fizz replies, almost immediately. The eyes of the other girls snap to her in an instant.

“So that’s why Sera carries herself like that,” Ari hums. Lavender’s eyebrows rise far beyond what she’s seen on anyone human or pretending to be.

“Yes, I suppose. I can talk to her for you, you know. She might not understand, but she will respect your decision and that’s the most we can hope for right now.”

“I’d like that, Fizz,” Ari says, “I’d like that a lot.”

-

Akiva, as expected, understands (after all, he is one of those scattered many), even if he’s not very happy about it.

“You will take the guarding job seriously, is that understood? I will be on T’kari for the winter and for most of the summertime, and if the fledgeling is hurt during that period of time I will hang you using your own intestines as rope,” he says. Cassius doesn’t even blink.

“Mordechai will be with us the entire time, and while you might not trust me with her safety, please trust him- I certainly do, at least more than most of the guards you and the rest of your family keep sending,” he replies.

“Why do you not like them?”

“Trust is earned, and while they are very dedicated to their jobs, they do not do anything to alleviate the stress levels of a very traumatized young girl. One guard, that she can see- Mordechai, or Fizz, if you really need, but that pup needs to go  _ home. _ She’s a lovely person, but she’s a child, and she shouldn’t be on bodyguard detail yet,” Cassius replies sharply.

“We did not assign her. She decided to come here by herself. If you would like to kick her out, be my guest, but I do not think that is a good idea. If you directed her to guard someone less of a target than Ariela herself, you might get better results,” Akiva offers.

“Like who?”

“The Granger girl, for starters. She might not be as much of a target but she’s still a worthy person to work for and/or with. Or you could ask her to watch over some friends of yours in the States- I am sure someone roughly equivalent to human small fighter aircraft would be useful in the field.”

“Not the last one, definitely. I was barely eighteen when I started working with Ian and while that was under extenuating circumstances, I still wasn’t legally an FBI agent until I turned twenty-five and finished my surgical residency,” Cassius replies.

“Are people not allowed to join the FBI at age twenty-three anymore?”

“Oh, they are, I just didn’t have anything to add to the table beyond being Ian’s emotional support until I was officially a surgeon,” he replies smoothly. That, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for the job until he’d already had the experience of being in the closest hospital and being on duty after multiple horrible things had just happened.

If he can handle stitching body parts back together after awful car wrecks and domestic disputes, he can handle seeing both the dead bodies of those who hadn’t made it and those his partner puts in the ground.

“But you-” Akiva starts, then wisely decides not to press the subject. Cassius is glad. He admires the man, he really does, but that does not mean he will not knock the dude’s teeth out if he continues to press the issue. He’ll grow another set within a decade, anyways, if he’s not in the process already.

Cassius is aware he has just essentially covertly challenged a two and a half thousand year old general over custody of a child, and won. He also is aware of the fact that he and the BAU are really the best choice, different species and non-biological family be damned. He doesn’t really care, as long as the pup is safe.

-

“Dumbledore knows,” Ari says flatly. Hermione and Ron nod in confirmation. Sera acknowledges this from where she is sitting, but she’s seemed to find talking to Ari more and more awkward as of late. Ari really can’t blame her, but she’s also made the executive decision not to blame herself, either. Fizz gives her the quickest of thumbs-up from where she’s draped across the crossbeam.

The others don’t take it nearly as well. Dean and Seamus, as their newest recruits, seem to take it upon themselves to be the group’s headless chickens, running around and screaming, muttering to themselves about the upcoming Hufflepuff match, then continuing to run around and scream. Fay, Lavender, and Parvati are all concerned- though less so- and Neville and Ginny are still nervous, but seem to be the least so of all of the others, save Luna and strangely enough, Cedric.

Luna, of course, does not seem to care at all. There is a peculiar light in her eyes, like she has already known this has happened. Ari makes a mental note to get her tested for any telepathy-related mutations, as that would explain a great deal of things about the other girl.

“It’s fine. Professor Dumbledore has said nothing and, in fact, approves of this as long as we strive to keep Hogwarts’s name out of the muck. He’s agreed to turn a blind eye to Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Cedric bringing us any accessible Ministry documents they can get their hands on and passing them along to Amber. I don’t know why he did this- I think he might just be amused to see everything crash and burn, really, which is kind of a  _ big _ mood,” Ari reassures. That stops Dean and Seamus from running around like headless chickens, at least, and gets a big smile from Ginny, which, strangely enough, makes Ari feel even better.

“So, we just keep doing what we’re doing and hope we stumble onto something else illegal that they’re doing at the Ministry? Won’t that take forever?” Cedric asks. Ari’s eyes widen a fraction, and she takes just a step back.

“Wow, you are  _ very _ committed to the fall of the Ministry of Magic, huh?” Ari replies, trying to hide that statement under a laugh. Cedric grins, eyes wild. Ari mentally reclassifies this young man under her  _ ‘what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck’ _ category, which previously has really only contained Aviv Hadar, Spencer Reid, and Albus Dumbledore. The criteria for that category, of course, is the ability to scare her and convince that they’re absolutely on a completely different plane of existence sometimes.

“Absolutely, ma’am, it is one of the steps needed on my many-step plan to becoming a dragon space pirate and/or a dragon space accountant. Because I already have one of the criteria down and the second for both is possible, I figured I’d just go for gold and try to do something memorable with my life,” he says. Ari remembers how excited he’d been by the prospect of being the proverbial IRS to the Ministry’s Al Capone, and files him under  _ ‘dragon space accountant’ _ . She isn’t sure, of course, because Cedric Diggory exudes such powerful chaotic neutral energy at this point that she’s fairly certain some form of piracy wouldn’t be out of reach for the older teen.

“Well, that certainly would be memorable, wouldn’t it?” she mutters to herself, before turning back to Hermione and Ron and mouthing  _ ‘What the fuck?’ _ as obviously as she physically can.

-

Cassius leans back in his chair with an audible sigh as Ian enters the room.

“That bad, huh?” the other man asks, sitting down on the couch and propping his legs up on Cass’s knees. Cass glares at him faintly, but says nothing.

“We’re going to have to start paperwork to be able to foster Miss Potter legally, if that’s what she wants. I’m going to have a more serious conversation with her about it, but-”

“The kid wants to live with us instead of Akiva?” Ian asks, a faint frown upon his face, “Why?”

“The Demerus are… not necessarily the best environment for a trauma victim, Ian, and if she would prefer us, I’m not going to judge,” Cass replies simply. Ian blinks.

“We’re literally always out of the state.”

“We don’t have to be.”

“We kind of do. For work.”

“Well, she’s going to be in that school for most of the year basically until she turns eighteen, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with scheduling Quantico full-time for when she’d actually be here,” Cassius replies.

“You- you’ve actually thought about this.”

“Of course I have, Ian. She’s a good kid, and she needs a steady environment. We might have to be called in plenty of the time, but we’re steadier than the Continentals. I respect the hell out of all of them, maybe a bit too much, but even I can acknowledge that it’s maybe not the best place to help a child get over trauma. Even Akiva didn’t come back until his daughters were well past the exclusively impressionable age, and they haven’t been through nearly as much in over two hundred years as this pup’s been through in twelve.”

“You do realize this isn’t going to do anything to convince people we’re not a couple,” Ian says warmly, basically all resistance gone. Cass recognizes this tone- it’s the ‘are you absolutely sure, because I trust you with my life’ tone, and he’s grateful for it.

“I really don’t care, Ian. We both know we’re not, and that’s really all that matters, here. Let them assume, while we try our best to give this kid the best shot that we can,” Cass replies, a fond smile upon his face.

“They’re going to have a very strange time of it when you or I actually decides to finally date again, aren’t they?” Ian mutters to himself, but returns the fond smile, shakes his head, and pulls out some book at random that he’s probably read at least a dozen times by this point.

“Oh, definitely. Probably a lot of staring and heads swiveling back and forth, but that really doesn’t matter, and Ian, I would enjoy actually falling asleep in this lovely chair of mine, so if we could stop talking, that would be  _ great, _ ” Cass bites back.

Ian shuts his mouth, but immediately begins pushing thoughts towards Cass’s side of their link, because deep, deep down, he is an asshole and doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quiet”.

“You know, if you keep doing that, I’m going to give you a taste of what I have to deal with all the time, and you will never do that again,” Cass threatens, cracking a single eye open. Ian laughs, and returns to his book.

The last thing Cass thinks before he falls asleep for real is that if they’re really going to be taking care of the pup, he’s going to have to make some serious adjustments to the apartment.

-

“So we’re still no closer on the Lowell case, then,” Garcia mutters to herself when she notices the dark circles under the eyes of her brothers-in-arms. She hasn’t gotten that much sleep herself- she just keeps replaying these images in her head over, over, and over again, because sometimes, Unsubs find completely new ways to get at her through her computer screens, and she hates it when they do that.

“No, we are not. I tried to get a fix on the guy’s scent, but I’m getting too many matches, to be honest. The only real way to do this is if it becomes a proper BAU case, and we get all the manpower we need, because there is no way we’re catching this guy with a team of three people, two of which are at least apparent humans,” Mordechai replies. The purple-eyed man passes her the coffee she’d asked for, then turns invisible again as the rest of the BAU enters the bullpen. Garcia nods to Reid, and Reid nods to where Mordechai would be, given where he seemed to be moving when he left their line of sight. Hotch gestures for them to all crowd in.

“I know you and Reid have been working part-time on the Lowell case for the past month,” he says, and Garcia nods defiantly. Cassius Blackwood has wormed his tiny way into her heart and anyone who does something like that to a sort of friend of hers is in for a world of hurt.

“I’m not asking you to stop, but I am asking you to consider putting that effort to cases we actually have the authority to solve. You and Reid both know that you’re not going to be able to solve the Lowell case without personal knowledge, and that will come from Cassius, whenever he’s ready-”

“It’s Cassius now?” Garcia asks, tired, but not failing to notice Hotch’s slip of the tongue. Hotch nods.

“I figured it was about time I stopped acting like a frightened puppy around him, as he is more than ten years my junior and does not actually have a grudge match going with me. He showed up to my house with more food than I could ever eat by myself in tow as a belated apology for yelling at me. But anyways, we need you on board for this case, Garcia. You too, Reid. And Tavi- this one uses some sort of compound that metabolized but apparently has a very strong smell, we could use your nose,” he says. A notebook clatters to the floor.

“I know you’re still there, Tavi.”

“Dammit,” Mordechai hisses, sounding both more and less human than Garcia has ever heard him, “but yeah. I’ll help. As long as we’re back by the start of winter break.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter comes the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match!


	18. fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first Quidditch match

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo! not as fast as when i was writing 17 & this, but...

Ari is calm in the air. Even if it’s not under her own power, with her own wings, her Nimbus is a fine substitute. It makes everything slip away- the noise is not as loud, the smells are not as strong, and she feels as if she’s placed her entire face into a nice, cool bucket of water and she hasn’t cleared her ears yet.

Cedric is nearly as nimble in the air as she is (though there’s still a gap- she knows how to take advantage of thermals that the dragon boy would never have noticed), and is her direct competition for her first Quidditch match of the year. At this point, as long as she gets to fly, Ari could care less, but Wood wants a win in his final year, and Ari trusts him- knows that losing again would crush him. She doesn’t exactly know what happened to make Flint back out of their first match, but she doesn’t care, because Cedric is a far more worthy in-air foe than Malfoy, anyways.

She’s been using human maneuvers to catch practice Snitches for over an hour when she finally decides to mix things up, to go after the Snitch like it’s capable of actual thought and predicting its movements as best she can- the kind of predictive tracking that Ian has told her about more than a few times.

Instead of a traditional follow-dive, Ari drops altitude to pick up greater speed, and uses that speed and momentum to push her further and faster than the Snitch, before pulling up at the absolute last second, Snitch in hand and face on broomstick. She shakes off the force of the impact as best she can, turning back to Wood with a smile on her face and an exaggerated thumbs-up motion.

He gives her a thumbs-up back, and Ari releases the snitch back into the air to start again. It dips under the rest of the team, and Ari gives chase, bobbing and weaving through the empty pitch like a falcon after prey. She doesn’t expect to hear anything from the others- they’ve gotten very used to this newfound aerial confidence as of late, even though it’s very likely no human could pull off the stunts she’s been getting away with. Fred and George, of course, throw out suggestions as they always do, telling her to corral the Snitch onto Wood’s head or to weave her way through the hoops like some sort of Border Collie in an agility competition. Ari almost does it, too, because the concept of the faces everyone else would make is absolutely priceless.

She flips backwards completely about halfway through training, for the simple fact that she can, which does get a few claps from the peanut gallery. She would clap, too, if broom-flight wasn’t such a frustrating version of wing-flight sometimes. Her movements are more rigid, and while hovering is far easier, that doesn’t balance out the pain that is trying and utterly failing to conserve momentum, something she’s found that she’s best at. Her wings, wide and tapered as they are, are perfect for catching even the slightest breeze, and she can pull up by only angling a few of her feathers, so why is readjusting to a broomstick  _ so hard? _

She’s doing alright, and she thinks she’ll be fine for the match against Hufflepuff, even though her Patronus has been doing some strange things as of late. It’s like it doesn’t want to be a whale anymore, and it keeps reforming itself into something not quite as large, but still, she thinks, formidable.

The main problem, of course, is that Ari has absolutely zero clue as to  _ why _ it’s actually doing that. She only knows that it is.

-

She figures that the person most likely to know what the hell’s going on with her Patronus is the weird werewolf Defense teacher who looks sad whenever he sees her. She remembers someone mentioning  _ something _ about a Lupin that was close with her father, but she has absolutely zero clue if this is the same man. She doesn’t even know if this Lupin is the correct age as her father’s Lupin.

“Professor?” she calls, tensed up and prepared to run, just in case. The man in question raises his head tiredly in acknowledgement, before immediately slumping back down. He looks even worse than usual, and Ari remembers that the full moon was more than a week ago, so she has no idea as to why he’s miserable.

“Yes, Miss Potter?” he replies. He looks half dead. Ari feels bad for him, she really does, but she also needs to figure this out, and she needs his help, not Sera’s or Naftali’s. From what they say, for shape-changers, their Patronus is usually constant, and she doesn’t exactly know why hers seems to find itself malleable, instead. However, her subconscious questions make it to her mouth before her conscious ones that she was actively planning on asking.

“Did you know my father?” she finds herself blurting out. Something in the back of her head is yelling at her to beat it and to stop bothering this poor, tired man, who doesn’t seem so tired anymore. He has a light in his eyes as he launches into one strange story after another. Ari, at first, doesn’t have the heart to stop him, and has even less of it once she herself becomes enraptured by the man’s story of how her father, him, and two of their close friends did many illegal things together. He stumbles around the word “werewolf” so many times that Ari has to keep herself from smacking this poor man in the head with an old, heavy cast iron. She finally just sighs, and looks him directly in the face.

“You do know I know that you’re a werewolf, right?” she asks. He flinches, before looking at her more curiously. Ari wonders if he’s  _ surprised _ she hasn’t reported it to the student body or school board before now.

“You’re looking at me right now like I actually care,” she hums. His eyes widen further, and he sits back down.

“You know, you’re just-”

“Just like my father, yeah, I’ve heard that one before. I don’t know how, because I am absolutely certain that Reid wouldn’t speak to me for years if I said that personality was genetic. And I’m not sure if I agree with the statement to begin with,” she cuts in. Professor Lupin nods sagely, as if trying to pretend he’s at least twice his own age (when, really, he must be what, barely thirty-five?). Lupin shrugs, and turns back to the papers he’s grading. Ari takes the cue to leave, and steps carefully out the door, making sure to slide the door back softly into its original position.

Ari is already in her dorm by the time she realizes that she’d never asked her original question.

-

The morning of the Hufflepuff game doesn’t dawn at all, it seems. The sky is so filled with clouds that Ari knows stretch several kilometers into the air that it seems as if it’s just a particularly cloudy night. Lightning flickers across the edges of her vision, and Ari finds the concept comforting, considering all of the Dementors that have seemed to crowd around this singular event. Really, who needs this much security at a junior sporting event?

Ari spares a moment for the internal question that’s been bugging her about the wizarding world and college athletes, and squishes a second about the wizarding world and college in general. She’ll cross that bridge when she gets to it- there’s no need to go down the rabbit hole when she’s about to get off the ground altogether.

Cedric shoots her a grin from across the pitch, and Ari wiggles in the anticipation of the chase she’s about to undertake, if the weather allows. Hermione and Ron are here, of course, to see her up, and Ari kicks off without much fanfare as the Snitch escapes Hooch’s grasp. Both her and Cedric follow the tiny golden ball directly up, at an angle that would stall an airplane and require significant downwards momentum in her other-shape for Ari to work with, so that’s one point in the favor of broomsticks.

Cedric loses sight of the Snitch and seems to resolve to follow her, which is all well and good, as Ari can still see the snitch, glinting just out of reach. She doesn’t notice herself and Cedric both leaving the newly-constructed protective wards around the pitch until they’re both already well above the maximum safe height for humans, and the Snitch begins to plunge. Ari reacts first, tucking herself smooth against her broomstick in a dive that she’s found has become like second nature to her. She accelerates rapidly, using gravity and the heavier load of this denser-boned shape in her favor. She’s past terminal velocity for the average human skydiver soon enough, building enough speed so that the wind screams in her ears and she can barely see past that glint of gold. The Snitch pulls up faster than any human would be able to see, and Ari curses and follows as it weaves throughout the stadium like it had during practice.

Cedric is right on her currently nonexistent tail, now that he can actively see. Ari drops her broom for just a second to hop over the goalpost, which gets a few “oohs” from the crowd below. Cedric just glares, and gestures to the arena.

The Snitch, of course, is gone, which means that they are both absolutely soaking wet for however long it takes to find that ridiculous golden ball again. Ari snorts as she flies to where Cedric is hovering, and begins looking as well.

“If we don’t find the Snitch soon, we’re all going to catch our deaths out here,” he states matter of factly. Ari snorts, and gestures to herself. Cedric sighs, and palms his face with his free hand, before taking both off his broom, because he is an idiot.

“Hello, I’m Ariela Potter, I can control storms but I didn’t bother to stop this one, and I actually  _ like _ miserable weather because it gives me an excuse to show off and make fun of my oh so patient-”

Ari ignores him, and jets upwards towards the glint of golden light. She can hear Cedric cursing all the way behind her, the slowpoke that he is. Ari just smiles, and continues to rise in altitude. The Snitch disappears again into the clouds, and Ari can’t hear the buzzing of its wings for the noise of the rain below and around them.

She’s caught off guard by a splinter of lighting and the accompanied crack of thunder. Far below her, she thinks that she can make out a dog the color of pitch- one that she doesn’t recognize, but somehow feels like she should. This confusion masks the growing feeling of dread, one that she doesn’t notice until it’s far, far too late.

Her hands are too stiff from the cold (that Cedric still thinks she’s somehow immune to) to make a grab for her wand, and her teeth chatter wildly. She makes a first, desperate attempt to scatter the Dementors, with a flash of lightning, but that does not deter them.

She begins to dive. The closer she gets to the pitch, the more likely the creatures are to be overwhelmed, and the more likely it is that someone will be able to cast a proper Patronus.

Her lungs seize up as the rest of her body does, and Ari tries to haul in a breath, maybe two, but it’s in vain. The world goes dark. The last thing she hears as Ariela Lily Potter begins to fall is the voice of her screaming mother, begging for the life of her daughter.

-

Cedric grabs the Snitch in victory just seconds before a body rushes past his head.

He doesn’t have time to think. There’s only one person who could possibly be higher in the air than he is, so Cedric dives. He puts the Snitch between his teeth, like Ariela herself had once upon a time, and ducks his full body in, trying to get a grasp on the technique that had come to the young girl like breathing. He needs to be moving as fast as a falling girl.

He spies Dumbledore down on the ground, but knows that even then, a quick stop from higher up is not going to do much to change the impact if she’s falling from several kilometers in the air. Like how Lois Lane would definitely have died all of those times Superman caught her.

No, the key is catching the kid, and making sure to stop themselves slowly, or at least convert the momentum into something other than an impact force. The first thing, of course, is to grab the girl herself, which is easier said than done, but at least he still has a few kilometers to figure it out.

He gains speed and closes distance slowly, but it’s happening. Somehow, Unconscious Ari has managed to splay herself out like a skydiver, and while that’s not nearly as useful as it would be with her wings, it’s certainly better than nothing. Air resistance is doing most of the work for him.

Cedric looks back down at the rapidly approaching ground and mentally recalculates the time that he has. He can get them both on the broom and alive on the ground. The key, of course, is Madam Pomfrey, or, in the hopeful worst case scenario, St. Mungo’s.

He barely pays attention to the fact that his dive speed has now easily passed somewhere around four hundred miles an hour, and just grabs the unconscious body of his friend and makes sure her neck won’t break when they break their fall.

Slowly, slowly, Cedric begins to pull out of the dive. He’s not stupid enough to do that immediately- likely, it will just end up with one of both of them off of the broom and the repetition of the exact same problem they’d had only moments before, and Cedric is not about to allow his hard work and his high blood pressure go to waste just because he wanted it to look cool. Landing a broom with a passenger is like trying to land the world’s least safe airplane- it needs a slow descent and a lot of horizontal space.

Cedric breathes through his nose and tries not to scream as he finally pulls them both horizontal, which is helped by the fact that screaming would likely release the Snitch that he’s probably dented with his teeth by this point. He’s relieved to hear the lack of bones snapping as he finally drifts towards the ground. Ari slumps off of the broom immediately, and Cedric takes the definitely dented Snitch out of his mouth and grasps it in his hand instead, so he can scream for anyone of the medical profession, finally.

Madam Pomfrey sends both of them packing into the infirmary, where Cedric finally, finally passes out.

-

Ari awakes to a fussing team and Madam Pomfrey, and less broken bones feeling than she was expecting.

“Hey, why am I not dead?” she asks bluntly. Pomfrey points a finger towards the bed across the way, where Cedric Diggory has apparently been confined to for however long it takes for him to repair himself.

“You were going to die, so I figured I’d do the nice thing and, you know,  _ not let that happen, _ ” Cedric hums, already on, from what Ari can only assume from the collection of wrappers beside his bed, what must be his fourth or fifth chocolate bar of the day. He phrases it like a suggestion, but what Ari hears is “if you do shit like that again I will quite literally murder you myself. Voldemort can get in line.”, which is actually rather touching.

“Thank you for that. I would assume, since everyone’s in here, the game is over?” she hums, more asking Cedric than anyone else, the reasoning why being obvious once Wood shakes his head, and Cedric responds by snorting and raising the Snitch in a cold, nearly immobile hand.

“Yes, it very much is, and I for one am not looking forward to the fact that I’m doing this again in less than a month. Do us all a favor and give your seeker a break, Wood, she tried her best and she deserves a nap. So stop bugging her, let her eat her chocolate, and preferably her other food as well because she is distressingly skinny on some days, and let her take the nap that she’s earned, because a thirteen year old with burnout is something I would rather not see,” he snaps. He doesn’t even bother to toss in the illusion of a choice. Wood gives him a strange look, but scampers out. Ari mouths a “thank you” at the bed on the opposite side of the room.

“No problem, thank my extensive flying experience. Had it been anyone else and had they tried to pull up too soon, you absolutely would have either died or fallen off again. Hey, what do you think of me getting a muggle pilot’s license?” he chirps. Ari shrugs, before realizing that shrugging is still painful.

“Hey, do you think they do heated Quidditch gloves? I tried to reach for my wand up there to cast a Patronus but I absolutely would have dropped it and made a fool of myself,” she hums.   
“You don’t have any? I’m going to have to talk to Wood- I think he doesn’t realize how absolutely necessary heated gloves can be for Seekers when winter is approaching, and if something like this happens again, you’re going to need to have the full use of your wand,” Cedric says, a concerned frown crossing his face. Ari resists the urge to shrug again.

“Kid, you’re using your fine motor control basically more than anyone else in the game. You need warm hands to do that. Cold hands freeze up.”

Ari doesn’t resist the shrugging urge this time, but still regrets it.

“You are going to listen to me. You  _ will _ get some decent gloves.”

Ari doesn’t shrug again this time, but instead, simply falls asleep. She’ll deal with her overbearing friend in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter nineteen is done, but as we know now, that's not getting posted until chapter 20. anyways! this one was a fun one and I am VERY tired, can you tell?


	19. snap, crackle, pop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mordechai is going to be hanging around the bau team now but he gets to flex the super-senses here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whooa y'all ch 20 took so fucking long! anyways it'll be up when 21 is done, as is standard procedure so if i completely lose interest there's still one more chapter, but we're picking up!

Ari is tired, by the time she’s finally released from the Hospital Wing. She cradles the fragments of her Nimbus in her hands. She knows that she can fly without it, but-

But this broom was her first foray into the air, the first time she ever  _ flew. _ She shakes, just a little bit, as she sits down on her bed. There’s a decent amount of time for her to breathe and try to regroup before she goes back into another match, and she’s grateful for that.

“Are you alright?” Hermione asks, sliding over to Ari and grabbing her hand.

“Depends. I just had to relive the night my parents died, so are you asking emotionally or physically?”

Hermione nods, face tight, then gets a strange look in her eye.

“You’re planning to stay with Dr. Blackwood for the foreseeable future, yes?” she asks. Ari shrugs.

“It’s… I dunno. I think I’d prefer him and Ian, though. Anyone here sees the Girl who Lived and the Demerus see the lost nestling and they- the people in Quantico- they just see  _ me, _ you know? And if there’s anyone there that would probably fight for my right to sit down and breathe for a little while before they spook me again, it would be him.”

“Good luck,” Hermione hums. Ari smiles in response, and runs her fingers over the shards of her Nimbus again.

“Thanks. It means a lot to me for you to say that,” she replies, leaning into her friend with as much force as she can manage. Hermione sighs.

“Just try not to die, okay? I don’t know what either Ron or myself would do if that happened. We’re a team.”

“Of  _ course _ we are!” Ari yelps, then devolves into giggles. Hermione snorts, and pulls out a tome as thick as her forearm and slams it down on the bed. Ari hisses like a startled cat.

“That better not be homework,” she snarls, pointing an accusing finger at the book. Hermione rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“It’s not, you wimp. This,” she says, heaving the book into her lap, “is a comprehensive guide to poisons and venoms, and it took me forever to get it, and I am giving it to Neville. I wanted you to see if you can figure out what kind of venom T’karian venom is.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Neurotoxin,” she replies. Hermione makes a strange little noise in the back of her throat.

“What  _ type _ of neurotoxin?” she hisses, placing the book back in her bag, and opens up her computer.

“Look up symptoms. You’re bound to kill someone on accident if you don’t know how the things in your mouth work.”

“Technically-”

“Technically you already have, I know. But you’re going to do research so if you need to keep it under control you can. What if next time, it’s not someone that’s killed people? What if it’s, say, a significant other, or even just someone completely random that spooks you?” she whisper-screams, voice going all high and squeaky at the end.

“Dendrotoxin is the closest,” Fizz says from the windowsill. Both Ari and Hermione give her strange looks.

“What you were arguing about. There’s not going to be anything quite like it in that book, but the closest is a far more concentrated and damaging version of mamba venom, though the damage does depend on the dose, it kills quicker, and sometimes it’s not just the venom that kills- it’s the seizing. Sometimes their necks break. The freakishly high kill rate is thanks to the fact that T’kari is a carnival of horrors when it comes to poison and venom.”

Ari and Hermione continue to stare at her.

“Did neither of you consider that Earth venoms aren’t analogous with T’karian venoms?” she chips. Hermione smacks herself in the face with her own computer.

“Hey, it’s fine. There’s no reason you would have suspected it, your only experience is with Earth venoms. Stop hitting yourself in the face,  _ please _ .”

“What did you mean by ‘a carnival of horrors?’” Ari asks. Fizz’s eyes light up.

“So basically, T’kari is one of the most drastic examples of a poison-immunity arms race…”

-

“Well?” Hotch asks. Mordechai clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and scours the crime scene.

“The smells here are messing with me, but I think I’ve got it. But this one- this poison’s a deadly one, it would have killed them anyways. Why go through the trouble of making them ingest it and then just strangle them?” he mutters to himself. The death isn’t that hard to deal with- frankly, he’s seen worse, much worse, he’s only been recently shunted to non-lethal infiltration and distance missions and there’s a reason he can’t sleep most nights.

The hard thing is trying to manage his nose and his appearance at the same time. Hotchner- Hotch, he’d told Mordechai to call him- is nice enough, had passed him some color contact lenses, but it’s still difficult to keep himself from shifting fully and scent-tracking for as long as he can.

“That’s our job to figure out,” Hotch replies. Mordechai frowns.

“Could you explain it to me? If I know how this works I might be able to be more helpful, beyond just spare nose.”

“Probably for the power it gives him. We’d be looking for someone who feels powerless in his everyday life, probably not physically fit if he uses a poison,” Hotch notes.

“So, he chloroforms them, and then, instead of dragging them someplace, strangles them in their own home.”

“Nobody said chloroform.”

“I did. Fruity smell usually means chloroform, and it’s definitely going to show up in the results. I’m surprised none of the techs guessed it. It didn’t metabolize at all,” he replies, “you didn’t need me.”

“That’s debatable, but you’re here now, anything else you could add?” Hotch asks. Mordechai closes his eyes and pins his ears to the back of his head, blocking out everything that he can.

He inhales shallowly a few times, careful not to stumble over any evidence, and moving slowly. He pauses.

“Now that… that makes no sense…” he mutters to himself, following the smell of body spray out of the house and out the back, where the trail continues to get stronger and stronger, up until the point where, at the curb, it abruptly stops.

“Getaway car, probably. This wasn’t opportunistic. And this spot- it’s got the same basic smell, a lot of it is layered over, some fainter, some stronger,” he reports. Hotch blinks.

“How do you figure?”

“Whoever it is used copious amounts of Axe. I’m saying so much that my nose actively stings. In the house, it’s about as fresh as the blood and… other fluid smells,” Mordechai replies.

“They didn’t find anything on the body to suggest sexual assault prior to or even after death,” Hotch notes. Mordechai frowns.

“Well, the scent’s definitely there, and it’s mingled with the sweat-smell that goes with the body spray as well,” he mutters.

“How on Earth…” Hotch whispers. Mordechai’s head snaps up, and his face breaks into a massive smile. Hotch frowns.

“You better not make that joke. I’ve heard it more than once already, it gets old. Let’s just get back to the rest of the team.”

Mordechai nods sagely, but reserves to tell said joke to both Reid and Garcia when they get back. Knowing them, Reid will just look at him strangely but Garcia will cackle like a hyena.

-

The woman in question does, in fact, cackle like a hyena when Mordechai tells it to her over the phone, but it’s mostly just to raise Mordechai’s confidence in his own people skills, which, frankly, are rather abysmal. He still reacts visibly noises that the rest of them can’t hear, still wrinkles his nose at smells they can’t smell, and avoids people because of it.

But he’s definitely useful. He’s managed to scent-track the Unsub to a getaway car, positively identified the body spray he wears, and changed the profile. Even if working with him during the foreseeable future won’t be as practical (much as it hurts her to say- it would be nice to have some scarier magical backup than just Elle), it’s nice to have another specialist in reserve, and frankly, it seems to be good for him.

She hopes it’ll be good for him. Having him on hand will make things easier once Cassius comes back to himself and they can get back on the Lowell case.

She’s so busy thinking about the possible future scenarios that she almost misses the deep, rumbling noise that echoes through her speakers. Garcia pauses. She’s heard that noise before, gotten almost familiar with it. It’s a sound made by rolling around in a deep chest and massive lungs, a sound that screams “mess with me at your own peril”.

She doesn’t know the base of it, why their growls are so low, deep, and angry as to shake the ground itself, but she can recognize the sound for what it is.

“Heeey, Mordechai,” she whispers, a weak, almost whining sound that she’s observed gets immediate attention and concern from the T’karians she’s met. The growling stops.

“Garcia, are you okay?” he asks. Garcia lets out a breath of relief. His attention has been diverted.

“Are you? I think you need to let Hotch handle this. Get back to HQ, get your head fixed back on before you bring the house down,” she replies. Mordechai makes the Good Noise, as she has dubbed it- a light, curious, almost trilling sound, one that reminds her just a bit of a cooing dove or pigeon. She hears feathers and assumes he’s taking off- following her advice to the letter, hopefully.

She likes to think of him as a friend, though a tenuous one, but knows that he’s not going to fit with the team unless he tames down significantly, like Akiva or Ariela herself.

The sound of feathers again enters her speakers. She assumes he’s landing- the sound reminds her of a bird returning to someone’s fist during a falconry presentation.

“I can go, if you’d like. I’ve kinda exceeded my usefulness here,” he rumbles. Garcia blinks, then realizes that he can’t see her.

“Ask Gideon, and get rid of the mopey attitude. If he tells you to stay, we need your head in the game so we can do this. Your nose is effective but it’s only going to work if you can interpret what it’s telling you for us,” she replies.

“Ma’am yes ma’am,” he responds immediately. Garcia frowns, then her eyes widen.

_ ‘Structure. We’ve been phrasing everything like a request, but he’s always going to be uncertain unless we phrase it like an order. Okay, okay,’ _ she thinks, then switches the line over to Gideon.

“Yes?”

“Gideon, when Zooms shows up, if we really need him to stick around you’re going to have to specifically  _ tell _ him to do it. I think he’s very confused as to whether or not we actually need him here and while we could  _ probably _ figure this out on our own, he’s definitely helping when it comes to time. Just either order him to stay or go back home and he’ll take care of the rest,” she rattles off rapidly. Gideon takes a moment to respond.

“That’s not a healthy way to work with someone with that kind of problem,” Gideon replies.

“Yeah, but it’s what will get him to stop being so mopey. He needs a specific job to do, and he needs you or Hotch to tell him what to do. No room for misjudgement,” she snaps back.

“That was astute. Thank you,” Gideon hums. Garcia smiles, and continues to listen in as Gideon speaks with Mordechai.

He’s staying- at least for this case. They need his nose. And he’ll stop moping, now that he has a job to do. Garcia twirls a pen between her fingers. Her secret plan to get a personal protector for her people is in session.

-

The simple fact of the matter is that Ari has absolutely no clue as to what is going on.

She knows for sure that she’s not going to be in Britain this winter if she can help it, knows that hiding behind a wall full of people that genuinely care about her and have at least a little political capital to spend is worth getting questions from her teachers as to where she’s running off to.

She knows that Sera isn’t coming back next term- she’s going back home, finally, to be with her sisters and to fuss over her grown sons. Fizah will stay, because she’s already described herself as something of a limpet, though Ari wonders if she can transfer that clinginess from her over to the adult T’karian that’s in the area instead.

A sigh escapes her as she attempts to cast her Patronus again. It continues to waver.

Ari snarls, slaps both hands onto her desk, and grabs her coat. She’ll get answers out of Lupin even if she has to drag them out by force.

Hermione lays a hand on her shoulder, and Ari stiffens.

“Hey,” the other girl whispers. Ari’s lips twitch up involuntarily.

“Hey,” she responds, and notes that even to her, it sounds tired and worn out. Hermione’s face falls, just a little bit.

“Would you like to talk about it?” she asks.

“I- I have to figure out what’s going on with my Patronus,” Ari replies. Hermione grabs her hands, and leads her to a chair.

“Ron and I are worried about you,” she says gently, “And you’re not doing anything to alleviate that stress right now.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ari replies.

“So, what do you think is making you so jumpy?” Hermione asks.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not going to work, Ari,” Hermione replies.

“I really, really don’t know.”

“We both know that you do.”

“Stop prying, okay?” Ari asks, digging her fingers into the arm of the chair and sitting up rigidly.

“What,” Hermione says, getting up close into her face, “Are you so occupied with? Are you worried about exams? Are you worried about going home for the winter? Are you worried about someone finding out? Or is it something else?”

Ari slams her hands down roughly on the arms of the chair.

“What do you want me to say, Hermione? That I’m not coping well? That the family that I grew up with are abusive pieces of shit that the teachers  _ still _ think I live with? That my mother’s family are monolithic shapeshifters with slide-rule aging? That I don’t know how that works? That I  _ finally _ get a happy memory and a working Patronus and something is  _ wrong _ with it? That it feels like the hammer is about to drop and I have no idea what’s going on and it feels like the people I’ve trusted for once in my life have just- have just  _ lost interest _ ?” she yells, and slumps down in the chair. Hermione nods.

“Well, at least you’ve got it out in the open.”

Ari snorts, and raises her fingers to her mouth.

“Don’t ever do that again. Please,” she says softly.

“I can’t promise that, you know that well enough,” Hermione scolds, but her voice is gentle, like she’s trying her best to keep it from startling her friend.

“I know,” Ari mutters, eyes trained on the floor.

She’s not going to be able to talk to Professor Lupin tonight, either.

-

Cassius pauses before he enters his apartment. There’s a smell in the air, something almost familiar, but it’s drowned out by chemicals.

Someone was in his home. And whoever that someone was, they know he is capable of scent tracking.

He knows Ian isn’t there- won’t be home for at least another hour, he needs the gun range and Cassius can’t be there with him right now. Ian needs to be absolutely certain his aim is on point.

Cassius rattles off a list of people who know about his and Ian’s scent tracking abilities in his head, and finds that most of the names are on both lists. There’s only a handful that are only on one or the other, and most of them are on Ian’s.

Cassius grips his keys tighter, between his fingers, as he grabs for a more suitable weapon. There’s a knife in a holster tucked against his ankle, where he’d usually carry a handgun or something else, and he balances against the door to retrieve it.

The door slides open with barely a sound. Cassius finishes fishing for his knife, and internally curses himself for forgetting his gun, which would be much more useful for dealing with anyone from a distance.

The apartment is dark, and it is cold, which is concerning, because Cassius and Ian both have a strong distaste for anything being too cold (for Cassius, the memories it brings are  _ darkdampdankfreezing _ and for Ian, the memories are  _ drysandwindblood _ , but the point is the same). Someone turned off the heat entirely- the whole apartment is easily colder than fifty, probably in the forties somewhere- roughly the same as it is outside. He grips his knife more forcefully, and quietly opens the side panel he’d installed months ago into the wall.

He trades the knife for something far more effective, and continues on.

Much of the apartment smells of antiseptic, but less and less like whoever it was attempted to hide their scent, and more and more like they attempted to hide what they brought with them.

Cassius finds scratch marks in his chair, and more on the wall next to his room. He takes a deep breath before moving onwards, pushing the door open tentatively.

The first thing that hits him is the smell. It’s not particularly strong, or putrid in any way- it smells strongly of dried blood, but otherwise, it’s mostly, by itself, harmless.

Cassius staggers, and rights himself carefully. Practically everything in the room is identical to the way he had left it, with the exception of the bed.

On the bed, there is a note, left open. Cassius doesn’t have to move any further from the doorway to know who it’s from.

The note, in a long, spindly script, like the spider who wrote it, is signed  _ Lycaon. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways fur and feathers is still a go, we're going to have more hp stuff, some more numb3rs centric stuff, some more criminal minds centric stuff, because i actually highkey committed to this idea and I Like This Very Much sooo....


	20. callout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wow this one took a long time to write... 21 did not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoaa! another update within 2 weeks! anyways this one i am stubbornly forcing myself to at least try to finish. we all know that the other two aren't going anywhere until this one's done anyways.

Ariela knows that something is wrong when Reid calls her, sounding nervous, but Cassius is enacting complete and total radio silence.

She would be more stressed than she is now, but she’s heard from Ian, at least, and he’s said that something has just spooked Cass- it’s nothing she’s done.

Now, of course, Ariela worries for the Moondancer, because anyone with eyes and a moderate knowledge of him can tell that working himself up into a panic is one of the man’s fatal flaws.

She finds herself itching to fly back over to the States, finds that lightning sparks between her feathers and that the thunder cracks above the roofs of Hogwarts more often. Ari is grateful for the stabilizing role that her friends have taken on, keeping her calm and quiet and avoiding any serious conflicts with anyone for feat that she might literally take someone’s head off with a particularly aggravated tail-swipe.

Amber Strong continues to release her exposés, but they’re a bunch of children- even on the best of days, they can’t influence the outcomes politically, at least not in a way that counts.

Or…

Ari knows that doing  _ something _ will ease the itch of worry and something else she has in the back of her head. Throwing herself into a cause completely- like, say, demanding trials under Veritaserum for those accused of being Death Eaters, or loudly protesting in the Ministry atrium for better treatment of non-humans, or staging a school walk out to protest the  _ shitty _ child safety precautions at Hogwarts- that might soothe her, for at least a moment. She will have done  _ something _ , and that’s what really matters.

It’s cold, in the morning, and her breath comes out in a thick mist, rolling out into the air. She mantles her wings over her shoulders, and stares into the middle distance like she’s expecting to see something.

Her ears are tilted back towards the door, and they shake as she does, a mess of tears, confusion, and feathers.

She looks out to the sky outside again, and something powerful grips at her insides. She feels more and more now like she wants nothing more than to leave- like the changing of the seasons is screaming something in her head, ordering her to fly away from this place.

“You want to fly away, don’t you?” Fizz asks, warm brown eyes all-knowing in their depth. Ari nods, shaking, but manages to keep enough of her wits about her to give the older fledgeling a curious look.

“Never understood why Migratories like this planet so much,” she says in reply, “nobody here lets you listen to yourselves. Fly if you want to, Ari- give ‘em hell- I might not like flying thousands of miles but I’d do it to follow you, or Hermione, or Ron, or any of you people- but you’re the one who needs to fly right now and you need to listen to yourself.”

Ari blinks in surprise, and looks back out, into the swirling winds, and feels warm, inside, for the first time since she’d come back to Hogwarts.

“You’d really follow me?” she asks the older T’karian, who nods, and uses her wings to pull Ari into a warm hug.

“Anywhere, Princess, it’s kind of my job,” she says. Ari snorts.

“You  _ picked _ this “job”, you silly bird. And don’t call me Princess.”

“That I did, against my tutor’s wishes, at that,” Fizz replies, “and I will call you Princess because  _ you are one, _ even as far down the line of succession as you are.”

_ “What.” _ Ari says flatly, breaths coming faster and closer. Things click together- the stiff way her cousins address each other, the confidence they’d had that her aunt and uncle would be taken care of, how they’d dissipated almost as quickly as they’d arrived. She doesn’t realize she’s gripping her arm until warm liquid- blood, she realizes- trickles down her arm.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Fizz whispers, placing clawed fingers under her chin and churring gently. It’s a comforting noise, and it’s doing its job, slowing Ari down until she can think for herself. She inhales, and inhales again, filling deep lungs as best she can. Her ears prick as Hermione’s familiar heartbeat speeds up- she will be awake soon, and there’s not much Ari can do about that, except for apologize, maybe. She feels really bad for making her wake up. Ari doesn’t notice that she’s saying all of this with her spots, until Fizz guides her head back to face her.

“You don’t need to apologize, Ari, it’s not your fault. It’s six in the morning and you’re scared, kid.”

Ari realizes something in that moment. No matter how much they look like they could be in the same year, Fizz is nearly a thousand years her senior, and knows more about what they both are than she likely ever will. Ari grips to her hand with a brand new fervor, eyes bright and wild.

“What is it like, there?” she asks. Fizz smiles, and sits them both down on the cot she’s called her own for the past few months.

“The mountains scratch the sky, and are always changing. And the seas and deserts are hard to cross, but the challenge is what makes them such a crowning jewel- the heat from the desert makes thermals one could ride for a hundred miles without ever flapping a wing, and the oceans are so deep and vast that you need to borrow gills or you won’t ever see a thing of any importance. No matter where you are, you’ll find a friend, for there is one thing more deep and vast than even the seas of T’kari, and that is the wanderlust of her people. The forests are dense and filled with beings, both those that can think for themselves and those that cannot, and the skies are not only populated by us, but by anything that can take to the air, and they make sure that we remember that fact,” she says gently, “and the storms roll in fast and hard, but if there is anything a T’karian child knows how to do, it is how to fly when rain pounds down on their wings and lightning flashes about their head. And the cold of the north and south is strong, of course, but not as strong as the want to see what lies in the snow there, to dance with the lights that ripple across the skies in the middle of winter, and to fly and fall and fly again, draped in cold and colors, resting on the tops of the world.”

-

There, in the girl’s dorm in Gryffindor Tower, Ariela Potter breathes in and out and accepts what she is- not human, but something else, something wilder, with a need to run and jump and fly high above the clouds, where none here could touch her, where she would be safe and would not need to scream or curse or bite, and instead, whirl around and dive and pull up, like the dancing wind.

She walks out of that dorm room once the sun rises with a fire burning in her gut. She will not sit patiently and pretend anymore. She will go back to the east coast, run with the wolves and fly with her cousins, and she will stand her ground. She will not let some nobody of a werewolf that knew Cassius once scare her away from a place where she feels safe and loved.

She knows Ron and Hermione will follow her, will stand their ground too and look death right in the eyes if she only asks them too, for she would do the same for them in a heartbeat.

She will not stay here, over the winter. She will do what she is itching to do, once she gets out of here- fly.

The resolution must show on her face, because those who’d joined the Room of Requirement team request a meeting, and the first thing they ask her is what the plan is for moving forwards with stirring up chaos.

Ariela has not been still, of course. She has been gathering information, and she brings it forwards with a flourish of her hand- documents upon documents, “private” letters of Wizamengot representatives that aren’t so private anymore, the whispers that have flowed through Magical Britain. It's not enough- not really- to get a complete turnover on the acquittals already in place, but it might be enough to get Sirius Black a trial.

She's going to try, at least. Out of all of the accused and convicted Death Eaters, he seems the least likely to have actively committed the crime in question.

Out of all of them, he seems the most likely candidate for a man who was framed.

She’ll have to ask around while she’s back in the States over winter, see if anyone can shed light on what they're beginning to uncover and illuminate it from within, like a flashlight shining through recently unearthed crystal, working together to expose what it really is on the inside.

She doesn't know who would be best at discovering what really happened, though, besides possibly Garcia. But even she would have trouble with the nonsensical filing systems of the wizarding world, with last names taking precedence over everything else and cabinets stretching hundreds of feet into the air. Centuries are jumbled together and it was hard enough for her to try to obtain what she has already, to say nothing of attempting to retrieve every single one of the case files from Black’s trial.

Or, rather, lack of trial. That, of course, was what drew Ariela to the case to begin with. A clear violation of  _ Habeas Corpus _ was in place, with not a single excuse for a twelve year detention period beyond he fact that it was universally accepted that he was guilty.

Of course, the fact that he is accused of  _ selling out her parents _ rubs her the wrong way, but this doesn't feel right. Something is missing. Something in the report feels blatantly wrong, and it feels like it’s staring her directly in the face and she just  _ can't see it. _

She reads over the report again.

_ Among the deceased muggles lies only one wizard, the distinguished Peter Pettigrew. _

Something’s missing.

She reads it again, and again, and again.

_ Among the deceased muggles lies only one wizard, the distinguished Peter Pettigrew. _

An image flashes through her head, and she grips onto it with all of her might.

A man who looks too old for the age he must be (a bit like Snape), coated in sweat, with a ratlike face and premature male pattern baldness.

A voice, too. McGonagall’s. Ari sees the flash of what she’s read is the Dark Mark.

A name.

_ Peter Pettigrew. _

She's found their opening.

-

The simple reality is that they have to up their tracking game, if Lowell is sending threats. Mordechai knows that the more powerful Moondancers they set on this guy, the more likely they are to get something, so he uses a little leverage to grab one of Cassius’s cousins out of prison early, before an appeal.

It’s not like the man is dangerous- he’d been thrown in on an intimidation charge as a result of going absolutely feral and the jury had been entirely human to boot- but Mordechai knows he’ll fight if he’s backed into a corner, as all Blackwoods will.

The young man’s name is Kaleb, and Cassius cries when he sees him. He’s rather tall, certainly more than his cousin, and, at least for the moment, more focused, and though Mordechai would prefer Cassius on a good day, Kaleb will do.

“I’d suggest pulling a few more cousins in on this, but we’re the only ones on this side of the country besides the Simons and great-aunt Ziva, aren't we?” he asks. Cassius shakes his head.

“Ziva is moving with the Simons again, trying to keep them off the radar. She won't be available in time,” he replies. He’s still shaky, but something about his demeanor has shifted- like he’s changed his mind about something entirely.

“Weren't there second cousins down in the Carolinas?” Kaleb wonders aloud. Cassius shakes his head again.

“We checked. If they were there, they didn't say anything to the local packs or any of us and they sure as hell didn't want to be found.”

“Atara?”

“Very busy. Some big pack from the South is setting some of the smaller packs in the area on edge, they're going in to do damage control.”

“So, we’re essentially on our own, then. Just two Moondancers, a witch, a handful of strikingly intelligent humans, and a T’karian.”

“Yup”

“To try and take down the worst person you have ever met. By ourselves. With absolutely zero backup besides the  _ possibility _ of the Continentals to speak of.”

“Yes, that’s right, Kaleb.”

“And you are absolutely, one hundred percent sure, that I’m not allowed to let Frank out of prison?”

“We can't let the Punisher out because a werewolf threatened an FBI agent. You know he’d never agree to surveillance like that, and your whole job that was laid out in your no-challenge appeal deal involved trying to avoid him killing people,” Cassius snaps. Kaleb releases a long-suffering sigh and stares directly at Mordechai.

“And  _ you _ are  _ absolutely _ sure that you don't have any good, conveniently powerful friends that could help us kick this guy’s ass?” he asks, almost pleadingly.

“What, can the Coastie not do the job?” Mordechai retorts, knowing it will get the rise out of Kaleb that they need. The Moondancer snorts, but nods anyways.

“We’re fucked, but at least there’s a chance,” he says hopefully. Mordechai rolls his eyes.

“Ye of little faith.”

-

Kaleb, as it turns out, is skilled at one thing in particular- finding some way, any way, to make himself useful and then that usefulness falling apart.

He hops on tracking, first, bringing six different books all filled with various tracking spells and their uses, from a basic curfew charm used by parents with particularly rebellious children, to a ridiculously powerful instant teleportation spell that punches through any resistance it comes across that requires mass human sacrifice and the tusks of three mammoths to cast.

They settle on one of the more basic ones- for obvious reasons-, a simple map-dot tracker with a map enchanted to expand and contract depending on how close the searchers in question wish to be. However, like all  _ proper _ tracking spells, it requires active placement on the user’s belongings, so it’s pushed to the side until they have only temporary access to him.

Then, he begins working on repulsion and hiding charms, which turns out to be the same thing when he realizes that the only generalist quality that would actually work requires repelling Ian as well, until Cassius takes him aside and whispers something.

They have a working anti-Lowell barrier around Cassius’s apartment after that, though Cassius seems more shaken than usual.

Kaleb still continues to ask for assistance. The BAU team is almost called on something new until a few Southern werewolves turn up dead, and that’s fairly easy to confirm as Lowell’s work. Officially, it’s a serial case, and therefore, the territory of all of them combined (well, except for Kaleb, but he’s here because they got him out and he’s willing to help).

“And we can't ask the New York Demerus?” he asks loudly as they're all crowded around Garcia.

“They're busy guarding NYC and they’re highly territorial, you're not going to get them to leave,” Mordechai replies.

“Akiva?”

“Off-world, same with his kids.”

“Arturia and her wife?” Kaleb asks Cassius, who shakes his head and sighs.

“It really is just those of us in here,” he hums quietly.

“And we can't pull in any of the Virginia-locale packs? I know at least a few Bloodwolves that hate the Greybacks and their sideline more than anything else,” Kaleb replies.

“Bloodwolves?” Elle asks. Kaleb and Cassius both begin to speak, but the former does a goofy little bow and motions for the latter to speak.

“There are multiple different types of werewolves, but those are bloodline wolves that need to kill to activate the werewolf gene, though this can be accidental. Hence, Bloodwolves.”

“Moonwolves are genetic Moondancers that got bit by infection-type werewolves before Manifesting,” Kaleb cuts in. Cassius looks at him oddly, but says nothing. A phone on the table buzzes merrily, and Mordechai grabs it in a single smooth movement.

“Well, looks like we don't need to call the Bloodwolves. We’re up to three Moondancers and three T’karians Michaela’s pissed enough about her daughter and wants to punch something, and Ezra and Naftali are on board,” he says.

“I am still of the opinion that we should have asked Beryl to charbroil the bastard,” Kaleb hisses. Cassius smacks him upside the head.

-

The simple fact of the matter when attempting to convince a wanted fugitive’s prosecutor that he is innocent is that it is ridiculously hard to do and unless one is completely certain that most, if not all, of the prosecution's case is complete and utter bullshit.

However, for Ariela Potter, that isn't even her problem, because apparently  _ there wasn't even a trial to begin with, _ so  _ of course _ there would be no prosecutor.

Speaking of barristers, however, Ariela isn't sure where she would even find a certified one that would be willing to take this case, much less a decent one.

Keziah, being an alien, doesn't know anything about British barristers in criminal court. She doesn't know much about Earthly law to begin with. For the most part, Seraphina is in the same boat, though, being older, she does know a little more.

In the Trio’s case, even all of their team library-scouring isn't enough to scrounge up any lawbooks of merit, especially old court cases.

Ariela, for one, thinks that there’s not much of a chance they find a half decent lawyer or barrister that would take the case, even if she asked fictional ones, because from what she can understand, court cases in the British Wizarding World, unlike everywhere else, go in front of the entire legislative body, instead of a trial by peers, and there is no defined defense or prosecution, just a prosecution.

Her screams of frustration are viciously audible around the school. Every time she thinks she’s found something, she hits a wall.

There may very well be no hope for Sirius Black.

However, unbeknownst to the fledgeling, right under her pinky finger and around an inch to the left is the line vital to her entire case, one that it will hinge on for all of the discrediting evidence.

_ Truth potions and magical vows are admissible in court. See: Veritaserum. See: Vow, Unbreakable. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so-
> 
> Kaleb Blackwood- Introduced! anyways kaleb is the slightly less angry and more tired version of cassius. they're literally the same age and they're both trans and they're both gay kaleb is just like six to eight inches taller and got himself both in and out of prison. he was with the punisher in prison because he was requested to be an informant as a condition upon his release and his record being scrubbed, he didn't like murder anyone or anything.


	21. slipstream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> turns out, lowell has a much bigger wolf squad than anyone's thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yup... this is finally here.

Ronald Weasley dreams about fire.

Beryl has been teaching him quite a bit on the art of calling it to the surface- the kind of fire that melts metal and stone and burns those alive to ash in less than a moment- and bringing it to heel. He is a quick study, molding fire in his hands while he floats above his bed every night. The other boys in the dorm try to copy him, but they only burn their hands.

Ron’s hands stay smooth and blister-less, and fire dances around his fingers like tiny golden fish in an ice-clear pond.

He knows why, of course, knows why the fire can't hurt him, why it doesn't hurt Charlie and it doesn't hurt Ginny. Knows that when it comes to a family as large as his is, even if it isn't visible, some hidden family traits may come to life.

Ginny dances with the fire, too. Hers is bigger and brighter, of course- Ginny has always been the fiercest of the seven of them- but more wild, less contained. She hurts people that she doesn't mean to, sometimes, and it scares her.

So Ron takes in everything Beryl teaches him on Saturdays and on Sundays, he sits down with his little sister and teaches her how to control the fire, how to summon it to her palms without scorching her friends.

She isn't as quick a study as he was, but she wants to learn, he can feel it. She tries. He helps, turning smooth skin to smoother scales as he holds her hands and speaks softly, kindly, like he doesn't with anyone else.

She’s his little sister- his only little sister. It's his job to make sure she’s safe, to teach her, to be kind to her. The first isn't accomplished unless he does the second and the third is necessary for that.

Sometimes, he sits on the outside of Gryffindor Tower with Ari and Hermione and just breathes, listening to the sounds carrying over the night air and feeling the wind as it circles around them.

He, too, yearns for the air, though not as desperately as Ari does. Hermione watches them both, he knows, and doesn't seem to understand the need for wind beneath wings and the freedom of flight. She’s always been the two feet on the ground type, or now, he supposes, the two feet in the water type.

All three of them, together, feel cramped, now. He’s not the only one who feels it, he knows- he can't fit in the Gryffindor dorm in his other skin, he knows that much, and he knows that Hermione aches for the ocean and Ari aches for the sky.

He feels almost useless, in that way. He can't help either of them with that, really, can only be there to support them and lend another voice and another pair of eyes. He wants to reach out, to offer solace, but it feels meaningless, really.

And so, Ronald Weasley dreams of fire. He dreams of a fire that warms the cold waters of the lake so Hermione can be happy, dreams of fire that creates updrafts that let Ari spin in the air like the dancer she’s always seemed like to him, dreams of fire that doesn't burn the people he cares about so Ginny can let loose with a laugh, dreams of fire that burns away all their troubles and leaves only happiness in its wake.

Ron knows it’s a sappy dream, knows it’s not a proper dream for a dragon, knows Cedric would probably laugh at him for it, but his friends are his family, too, and he wants nothing more than for them to be happy.

-

_ The simple fact of the matter _ , Kaleb thinks, _ is that Cassius and Mordechai and everyone else are of the opinion that we are dealing with only one werewolf. That is a lie. To only go after Lowell was a mistake, which is why I brought it up. That was a good thing. _

The attempt to convince himself that he made the correct choice is in vain. He’s still mad at himself for bringing up the point that they should really be focusing on the networks within Lowell’s, which is why he is in the middle of Florida alongside an equally unhappy Elle, who has had to change her shirt three times in the past six hours because apparently even in early December, it can still rain at Disney World when one is looking for homicidal werewolves.

“How are you not soaked?” she asks. Kaleb grins, and allows the faint shield around his body to shimmer into view for a moment. Elle quite literally growls at him.

“No magic. You know that,” she hisses. Kaleb snorts.

“This is an unconscious shield, Elle. I’m nervous, because we might be ambushed at any moment, so the automatic reaction is to put one up. Being only slightly damp is just a positive side effect. Now, are we going to look for werewolves in the creepiest place on earth or are we going to say fuck it, go on some rides, get some food, and go a state or two north where there’s an active werewolf  _ problem _ or are we just gonna go home?” he replies in an equally low hiss. Someone sitting on a bench near them jumps when (he thinks) a snake slithers out from the bushes. As the man runs away, Kaleb sheepishly lets the snake turn back into a branch.

“Sorry,” he mutters quietly, “It’s been a while since I’ve had no limiter cuffs. Or been outside for this many hours. Or had free access to HRT without any catches. Or felt moderately safe without Frank around. Or had the right to vote, actually, and doesn’t that all speak to a colossal problem with the American prison system-”

He’s cut off by Elle slamming him quickly into the nearest wall. He would protest, but she seems angry and anxious, and he’s not going to push it.

“Can you put your feelers out without getting detected?” she whispers hoarsely. He nods, and closes his eyes. He can mess with minds without removing external stimulus, of course, but it helps him focus on not leaving a trail if the only things he can see are those in his or someone else’s head.

“There’s one- random guy, kind of a creeper. No kids, blue Hawaiian shirt. Enforcer, high ranked enough to be doing something like this on his time off instead of patrol. I- oh,  _ shit. _ Greenaway,  _ please _ tell me we can bring this guy in, he’s a real piece of shit under the hood,” he replies. He doesn’t realize he’s crying from rage until Elle tells him to wipe his face off.

“Do you think you could make yourself about ten inches shorter and like fifteen to twenty years younger?” she asks. Kaleb cocks his head.

“You mean look like my little brothers, but smaller?” he hums. Elle nods, and he does as he’s told. She drags him out into the open and in the view of the man in the blue shirt.

“I cannot believe you, you ungrateful little shit!” she yells. Kaleb winces, and doesn’t even have to fake the flinch. Elle begins to walk away, as they’d decided.   
“Mom, I just asked you if you could leave a tip for the waitress! Mom, wait, come back!” he cries, and begins to run towards her, passing a key blind spot in the cameras. He wonders if the piece of shit in the blue shirt will take the bait.

He does, grabbing Kaleb by the hand and upper thigh, and then proceeding to attempt to place a bag over his head. Kaleb could laugh at how stupid this man is, trying to take a nearly thirty year old man disguised as a twelve year old boy in the middle of Disney World, if he wasn’t as pissed as he is right now.

He screams and stomps as is appropriate for his assumed age until the man brings a knife up to his throat. Sensing the hand through the cloth bag, Kaleb pushes energy out, and quietly transfigures the bag around his head to aconite flowers, which fall peacefully around him, but result in the convulsing body of the werewolf behind him.

Elle rushes over, gun in one hand, badge in the other, as Kaleb’s bones crack, stretch, and fuse, and his face becomes his own instead of Eitan’s. A growl fills the air in the space behind the bushes, and it isn’t until Elle gives him a strong look that he realizes that the one making the intimidating noise is, in fact, himself.

“...arrest for the attack, attempted kidnapping, and attempted murder of a federal agent,” he hears, and blinks at her.

“Last I checked, I wasn’t a Fed, just on loan, Greenaway,” he cuts in. She snorts.

“Oh, they’re making you a Fed for as long as they can, Kaleb. You either underestimate just how useful you Moondancers can be on a case, or overestimate how many they have. There’s less than ten nationwide that even fit in the same power index as you and your cousin and are also employed by the US Government, and six of them are in US Fish and Wildlife. You’ll have your pick of teams and departments, of course, but they want you to bond with whoever you end up with and stay there so you can be of use,” she replies, before gesturing to the werewolf cuffed on the ground. Kaleb nods, and rolls him over so the man can face him.

“You will tell me who your leader is, and what your name is,” he states, pushing a healthy dose of persuasion into the sentence.

“My name is Daniel Matthews and the Bossman is Hank Smith,” he replies quickly. Kaleb nods.

“Is that Hank as in Henry or Hank as in Hank?”

“Hank as in Henry.”

Kaleb nods again, and drags the man to his feet in one smooth movement, stupid blue shirt collar tangled between his fingers.

“You will never be able to hurt any child ever again,” he whispers, “because I will make sure you will go to prison for the rest of your life, and I will make sure that you’re placed with tougher shits than you, and I will make sure they know every evil, evil thing you have ever done, and fun fact from someone who’s been to prison? They’re not fond of pedophiles in there.”

Kaleb’s nose wrinkles as he watches the stain travel down the man’s pants when he tosses him into the ground like he weighs less than a ragdoll.

“Don’t piss off a Blackwood, dumbass,” Greenaway purrs. Kaleb’s grin stretches across his face.

“Do not piss off a Blackwood, indeed,” he says.

-

“So, how did you get the name “Henry Smith”?” Cassius asks, sounding the most like he’s back on his game that Kaleb’s heard him since the man learned Lowell was back in the States.

“Persuasion, no intimidation required. Serial murderer and pedophile by the name of Daniel Matthews should be tied up waiting for you in the bullpen. Fucker was confident enough to request a video interrogation by Veritaserum when he came around from the persuasion in an Orlando PD Magical Division cell. He’s going to prison for the rest of his life, they just figured the BAU would want him. As far as I know, he’s taking a no plea deal to avoid the shame of a trial” Kaleb replies, voice a confident purr, though he does feel icky. There’s nothing wrong with the basic once-overs he’d done to find the guy, and nothing even came close to the behavior Kaleb knows cops can have- he’s had to use his persuasive skills to get out of situations before- but what Greenaway had said-

He had known what he was getting into when he’d signed up. He’d even discussed it with Frank in their cell, how he’d be a government scenthound, probably, and asked to do things he wouldn’t normally want to do.

Kaleb hopes, to himself, that Greenaway is right- that they’ll give him options and let them choose. He of all people knows that a Pack-Bonded Moondancer is a terrifying force to be reckoned with. He just hopes that whoever decides on his choices will agree on that sentiment, and hopes that whoever he does end up with won’t ask him to dig deep into brains or pretend to be a little boy to act as bait.

He still feels dirty, itchy, wrong, like he actively put Eitan in danger instead of just a littler version of his face. It doesn’t feel right. Kaleb will have to apologize to him and Isaiah and Ze’eva and their mother after, when he can.

Elle notices how he’s shaking, tapping one foot and bouncing just slightly on the other.

“We’re just waiting for S.W.A.T. We have all the evidence we need to execute the warrant,” she whispers. He shakes his head, and freezes.

“It’s not that. We’re being watched,” he replies, and encases the both of them in a shield bubble. It’s not to soon, for just after the poles of the spherical shield close (for they do need protection from underground as well), a bullet tries to shatter it.

The bullet in question is sliced in half and melted when Kaleb puts more energy into the shield, and stares at Elle.

“We’ve led them into an ambush,” he hisses. There is a smell of ozone and burning hair inside the circle as Kaleb grabs Elle’s hand and vanishes, leaving just a radiating shield which quickly vanishes.

They reappear on top of each other in the S.W.A.T. vehicle, nearly causing the officer driving to crash into the nearest tree.

“Ambush,” Elle hisses, shoving both herself and the Moondancer into sitting positions, “do you have any backup at the ready?”

“Um, uh,” the officer begins to say as they arrive at Smith’s residence. While no fight has broken out yet, there are at least a half dozen bloodwolves patrolling what now appears to be a compound. Kaleb fiddles with the lighter bands of skin around his wrist and breathes in and out and back around again.

“You think you can…” Elle trails off. Kaleb shakes his head.

“Do we have anyone else that could-” he begins to say, before a roar interrupts them, and the compound before them bursts into flames.

The previous composure of the wolves scatters, as do they. Kaleb and Elle each intercept their fair share, before whatever it is that set the place on fire makes another pass. It doesn’t.

By the end of the night, they’ve got sixteen bloodwolves in various cells, and Kaleb is just so  _ tired _ . Down in the basement, they’d had eight Turned wolves, along with Henry Smith himself, who’d killed two officers before someone thought to drug him with wolfsbane.

Most of the Turned wolves are kids or young teenagers, locals who’d gone missing months ago. They’re hungry and upset and ready to pick a fight with the bloodwolves in the cells, but Kaleb, who’s seen enough bloodshed for the night, puts his foot down.

“You can testify against them in court, but if I have to write on a single more sheet of paper today, I will burn this place to the ground,” he snarls. A cough, and everyone turns to a woman with deep red hair and a gentle, placid smile on her face.

This is a dragon. Kaleb can tell.

The dragon smiles, and gives him the strangest look before she disappears.

-

Across the Atlantic (or, if one wanted to get technical, across North America, the Pacific, Asia, and then almost all of Mainland Europe), Ariela Potter finds herself sorting through piles upon piles of papers and parchment and swearing time and time again. The scrolls and books alike are all disordered and long and rambling, but they all say one thing- that she really, really, really needs to talk to Professor Lupin.

Ari takes one sleeve of her robe into her mouth, and screams in frustration. The last four or five times she’s tried to have a conversation with Professor Lupin, she’s had to back down because of something that either comes up randomly or some catastrophic event or another.

She decides, then and there, that if the universe is trying to make her avoid talking to Professor Lupin, she will use the time Seraphina still has at the school to try to discuss this with him.

Then, of course, on the second of December, Seraphina Demeru disappears entirely. According to Fizz, she’d made contact with her children again and just couldn’t wait the two to three weeks it would take to clear out of the castle without much mess. Thankfully, Dumbledore hasn’t seemed to care and while History of Magic classes certainly are slightly more boring, Seraphina’s absence isn’t as noticeable considering she’d only been in the classroom for less than six months.

They will all miss her in their own ways, but Ari has never been the kind to keep a mother from her children and she is mostly certain that her fellow classmates feel mostly the same way.

However, that is another avenue of speaking to Professor Remus Lupin that has been closed to her.

Finally, she sighs, slams her books down on the table in the common room, and grabs Ron and Hermione by their respective arms, nudging through the portrait hole with her feet. The Fat Lady makes a fuss, of course, but Ari’s growl is thunderous to say the least, and the Fat Lady has never been the kind to stand up to a moderately pissed-off alien.

She drags Ron and Hermione down several flights of stairs and across several corridors where she knows they shouldn’t be.

Ari hears a quiet mew, and turns all three of them around to find Mrs. Norris. Ari stares at her.

“You know I killed the snake that froze you last year, right?” she asks- or at least she  _ thinks _ she asks. What really comes out is a strangled rumbling sound. Mrs. Norris, however, seems to take this as common language and purrs in response, rubbing herself along Ari’s legs in a quiet  _ thank you. _ Ari grins.

“Anytime. We need to speak to Professor Lupin at the moment- it’s a matter of urgency- but I’ll tell you the story later, if you like,” she says, again in the growl-and-hiss sound. The cat actually nods.

“ _ What _ was  _ that?” _ Ron asks. Ari snorts, then smiles broadly.

“It seems, my dear Ronald, that our luck is changing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be doing a full year-three, but the latter semester is going to be like two chapters max because I don't exactly have much material to work on without amping up the rate of How Things Happen. anyways y'all know the drill right now 22 isn't coming out until 23 is done.
> 
> Pack Teams as of 21:  
> Kaleb-Elle: deep south & florida  
> Hotch-JJ-Cassius-Ian: direct response, home base  
> Morgan-Garcia: tbh they're not doing all that much because magicals tend to be technology-phobic, BUT they will be key in 23 mark my words  
> Gideon-Mordechai: let's just say they're plotting  
> Reinforcements: have not arrived
> 
> Room of Requirement team: they've kind of fizzled a bit because seraphina's gone but we've got a proper investigative team in both the last few chapters and then definitely if I decide to keep this going for Year Four.  
> (at the very least y'all are getting BAU + mordechai bc i think that's hilarious.)


	22. falconidae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hotch is a dragon, there's a minor panic in the gryffindor dorm that nobody actually cares about, and things are picking up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoot whoot I'm not dead! And I'm working faster than usual!

Aaron Hotchner sits back in his chair and sighs into his hands. They've done some good recently, of course- the Orlando pack bust of last night has settled at least Garcia’s stomach- but the idea that they're playing chicken with a particularly nasty werewolf unsettles his own, and he knows for a fact that Cassius (because now that they have Kaleb on their roster, at least for the time being until he’s farmed out for a year to some other agency per the agreement, he can't call the man Blackwood anymore, and, frankly, he doesn't want to- he’s worked hard to get rid of the grudge between them) isn't telling them everything.

Of course, this isn't an unsub he’s talking about, but a teammate, a fellow agent. And so, because he knows if he asks honestly he’ll get an honest answer, he asks Cassius into his office.

“I'm going to need to ask you a few questions about what Lowell was like as a teenager. If you need to take a break, I completely understand,” he begins, making sure to keep his voice warm and open.

“Of course, Hotch,” Cassius replies. Aaron smiles internally at the nickname, glad the Moondancer doesn't feel prickly around him anymore.

“Let’s start with how he behaved around your pack at school. Was he aggressive? Angry?”

“Just the opposite. If he was aggressive at all, it was aggressively bubbly. I was eleven when I met him, I wasn't exactly looking deep below the surface,” Cassius replies, then cocks his head, “but he was always very attention-oriented. He couldn't stand being left out of a conversation and he made us stop what we were doing if it didn't involve him. And he blamed us for things he did, a few times.”

“What would you describe his early kills as?” Aaron presses. Cassius inhales shakily, but presses on.

“Some of the older wolves would go to the forest to hunt at night. They weren't supposed to, so I had to go with him. He’d toy with whatever he caught and he didn't even eat it- he’d bully some of the other wolves instead, take theirs,” Cassius replies.

“First sentient kills, Cassius,” Aaron replies. Cassius nods.

“It wasn't Adrian or the rest of the pack. I think- I think he practiced, before he killed them. There were a couple of younger kids- eh, first years, second years, mostly Slytherins- put less suspicions on him, I guess, since he was a Gryff- that he’d taken interest in, before they’d gone missing. We never found their bodies- I- I’ve always thought he’d d- dragged them into the woods for some distance and ripped them apart until they couldn't be c-cl-identified as human remains anymore,” he says. Aaron can hear the tremor in his voice, and offers his hand. Cassius grasps it gratefully, and takes a deep breath.

“Who was Adrian, Cassius?” he pries. Cassius sighs.

“My old Alpha, died almost four years before I met Ian, about three weeks before I left for the States. Lowell- he’d gotten bolder. Adrian and the rest of the pack went to confront him- I’d been waiting back in the dorms. They didn't know I was leaving- nobody did- and they wanted to keep me sheltered from pack business as long as they could. Lowell found me, dragged me to the meeting place, made me watch, then-”

Aaron squeezes Cassius’s hand tighter and sends off a silent text to Ian.

“Cassius, I know. You don't need to tell me if it hurts too much,” he says, in the most soothing voice he can manage. Cassius smiles weakly.

“It won't matter how much I hurt as long as I can prevent it from happening to anyone else,” he whispers. Aaron feels a surge of sympathy- he, too, has seen far too many childhoods like his own in their line of work.

“As long as you don't blame yourself,” he hums. Cassius nods.

“Oh, I learned not to do that a long time ago. Why bear myself up about it when I can beat him up instead?”

Aaron smiles. That, at the very least, is progress.

-

Hermione thinks that they would make an excellent joke.

A demigoddess-or-something, a dragon, and a winged alien (though, technically, now that she considers it, a six limbed dragon is a winged alien as well) walk into a werewolf’s classroom to demand answers about the third’s long-dead father. Originally, as they were heading down the stairs, Hermione was worried Ari was going to hold the man at wandpoint and demand answers, but so far, she’s relatively calm.

Hermione wonders if she’d learned this from the BAU or from her weirdly attentive cousins, as some sort of interrogation technique. She wouldn't be surprised if it is that.

“So. Why didn't Sirius Black get a trial?” Ari asks, and Hermione resists the urge to rest her face in her hand and groan. Her friend is  _ blunt,  _ that is for sure. Normally, it’s a gift, but-

“That's what I've been asking myself recently as well. At the time, I assume they were bogged down and used the fact that the Fidelius on the house had been betrayed as sufficient evidence,” Lupin says. All the eyebrows in the room rise.

“Well, I was not expecting that to go smoothly,” Ron whispers to her. Hermione nods. Maybe they’re Ari’s lucky charm, here, the same way that she’s theirs, that all of the good luck that bringing the three of them together balances out the natural bad luck that swirls around their youngest compatriot.

“You know Peter Pettigrew is alive, yes ? We’d just need to obtain a vial of Veritaserum- though it might be hard to convince Professor Snape, now that I think about it- and record Black’s testimony under the drug. Veritaserum is admissible in court, after all,” Ron says. Hermione smiles- it’s something that she wouldn’t be surprised about coming out of her own mouth. Somehow, even though Ari’s face isn’t really visible from where Hermione is looking, she knows the other girl is smiling too. Hermione adjusts herself in her seat and leans forwards a little bit.

“We will be researching defense styles and barristers with open time slots who would be willing to defend Mr. Black while we’re out on break. I’d suggest you do the same. It’s a terrible crime, keeping an innocent man locked up in prison like that, especially when the prison is one like Azkaban,” she hums. Ari nods from where she’s sitting, and Ron does the same. They all file back out of the classroom easily, leaving Professor Lupin to stew in his own juices for a little bit. Ari bumps shoulders with the both of them and smiles her wide smile. Hermione grasps her right hand. Ron grasps Hermione’s right and Ari’s left, and they all stand in a little circle for a moment, coming to grips with reality.

“I think I’m going to be staying in Virginia again over the summer,” Ari begins, voice quiet and almost thready, “and I was wondering-”

“We’ll visit,” Hermione says softly, and Ron nods sharply in agreement, “though perhaps not this winter, since your current guardians are trying to fight a spree killer and his minions, and I hear the jetlag is  _ horrendous. _ ”

That last bit gets a laugh from all three of them, and Ari surprises both Hermione herself and Ron with a deep, rumbling purr, one that gets the mirrors and paintings in their frames on the walls shaking just a little bit. Hermione begins to laugh again, but Ron just looks curious, releasing the hands of both of them.

“How were you able to convince Mrs. Norris to not tell on us to Filch? I thought you said non-archosaurian Earth animals usually aren’t capable of speech?” he asks. Ari snorts.

“Mrs. Norris isn’t just some animal, she’s a person that was cursed into cat form. Apparently she’s somewhere around thirty-five or thirty-six now. Last week I promised her I’d do some research into whether or not it’s reversible,” Ari says. Hermione blinks.

“Are you telling the truth or-?”

“Hermione, that is something you’re going to have to find out for yourself,” Ari replies, a wide, fanged smile gracing her features as she leaps up to the next staircase.

“That’s the wrong way!” Ron calls from where they are. Ari blinks, then looks back down at them.

“Ron, the only way we’re going is ‘Up’, I’m allowed to have my fun,” she says. Hermione sighs and looks to Ron, who grins back at her.

“You want to see if we can beat her, don’t you?” she asks. Ron nods. Hermione hides a giggle behind her hand and grips the base of the next staircase as it swivels past, racing up as quickly as she can. Ron is right behind her as they jump between them, racing up and up and up until all three of them collapse in the dorm room of Gryffindor tower.

A few seventh years who are studying by candlelight look at them oddly. Ari snorts.

“You know, I bet if we used fountain pens instead of quills, we’d get better marks,” she says, in earshot of the seventh years. A few- Hermione would bet all of her pocket money that they’re purebloods- look confused, but the girl at the head of the table nods enthusiastically.

“I know, right?”

“I  _ also _ bet that at the very least Professors McGonagall and Flitwick might listen if a bunch of seventh years asked them,” Ari continues as they walk up the stairs to the third year dorms. The girl at the head of the table nods again and sends them a thumbs up. Ari shrugs.

“I mean, it was worth a shot, right?” she asks. Hermione laughs.

“Ari, we’re not going to get anything changed just by suggesting it,” she says. Ari sighs, and smiles.

“I know that, Hermione, I just want an excuse to use this nice fountain pen Dr. Reid sent me for something besides writing letters nobody reads because I’m texting them anyways,” she says. Hermione snorts.

“Don’t say it out in the hallways, the older girls might steal our electronics stash,” she replies. This, because it’s late, they’re all tired, and tired preteens act like tired-drunk adults sometimes, gets both Ron and Ari cackling like maniacs as Ron heads back to the boy’s dorm.

“Get some sleep, you two,” he says quietly before he slips inside. Ari salutes him jokingly while Hermione drags her inside their dorm. Nobody else is asleep, thankfully, however, they freeze as they realize that Neville and Seamus are hiding in the corner.

-

Spencer Reid sits up straight in his chair at five thirty in the afternoon with a strong feeling that something is very, very wrong.

His first instinct is to check on the members of the BAU and their new auxiliaries that are still in the field. Kaleb calls in at his request to say that he and Elle are fine, Mordechai waves from where he’s sitting by Gideon’s office like an oversized guard dog (or undersized- Spencer’s heard from the man himself that full-formed T’karians often weigh under a hundred pounds for flight purposes). Morgan’s with Garcia and JJ is walking with Hotch, Cassius, and Ian, in a tight-knit group, with the Moondancer directly in the middle.

Cassius makes eye contact with Spencer, and cocks his head. There’s a pulsing feeling, now, at the back of Spencer’s, and he grips on to it.

_ They're okay? _

Spencer’s heard that telepathy can be complicated and speaking with it can be even more so. He’d expected it to be nebulous and hard to fathom, so the simple, uncomplicated message takes him by complete surprise.

_ Telepathic speech is only nebulous and complicated when it’s confidential material and one is worried about others listening in, _ Cassius responds, eyes still locked with Spencer’s. The connection doesn't disappear, however, when he looks away to answer Hotch.

_ They're safe, _ Spencer manages to reply, though he’s not sure if it comes across as he intended it to. Cassius frowns, but turns away.

The phone on Spencer’s desk begins to ring. He just stares at it for a moment, before his brain finally kicks back into gear from the shock of using a form of telepathy and he picks it up.

“Dr. Reid speaking, who is this?” he asks. There’s a shuffling noise from the other end, and a muffled grunt.

“Can you not speak at the moment?” he pries. There’s a quiet ‘mhmm’ sound on the other end of the line. He raises his hand up to get the attention of the rest of the unit, and flags them all down. The four-squad, Gideon, and Mordechai all crowd around his desk.

“That’s a UK number,” Ian whispers. Spencer sits up in his seat.

“Are you calling from a boarding school in the UK, and would I know you?” he asks quietly. There’s a light tap and then another light tap.

“Is that a yes?”

There’s another light tap. Spencer puts the phone to his shoulder.

“One of the kids,” he says, bringing the receiver back up to his mouth, “Is there someone in the room with you?”

There’s a tap. Spencer exhales shakily.

“Do you think you might be able to get out of the room?” he asks. There’s another light tap, a yell, and a slam like the slamming of a door and the clicking of the lock. Spencer hears a dragging and a scraping sound before the kid on the other end of the line picks up again.

“I’m in the girl’s dorm now, they dragged me up the sliding stairs. Neville and Seamus made it out pretty quickly and Ron booked it after he saw someone else was in the room. I- I didn’t find out until after he’d already closed the door and I woke back up,” the kid says.

“Did you recognize who was in the room with you?” he asks. There’s a chorus of various noises and one girl snaps something at “Dean”, who Spencer assumes is the boy on the phone, before said boy retakes control.

“Of course. Who wouldn’t recognize Sirius Black in this climate?”

-

Hotch is quite possibly the most panicked out of any of them, which is rather obvious when he splinters the chair in his bare hands.

Mordechai takes this the most in stride, his only response being a set of raised eyebrows and an appraising glance when Hotch proceeds to set a plant on fire.

“Well, someone has some explaining to do,” Elle says as she and Kaleb waltz into the briefing room. Kaleb shakes his head and makes eye contact with his cousin and Mordechai as all three of them sit next to each other, facing the man.

Garcia just shrugs and shakes her head.

“Actually, most likely it’s his mother with the explanations needed, though I’m surprised he hasn't shown it before now. Usually most dragons express those traits in their teenage years at the latest. I knew a five year old girl who burned down her adoptive family’s house entirely by accident, once,” Cassius hums. Gideon nods in agreement, summoning a tiny charge of fire to his own fingers.

“I’d be happy to show you the ropes, Hotch,” he says warmly.

Garcia catches just a smidgeon of what the three (now four- their favorite werewolf has shown his face) shapeshifters are saying to each other, but it involves a debate concerning either telepathy or prophecy and Gideon. She decides that she really would try to avoid knowing that.

“Alright, beyond Hotch being a new inductee to the Creature Club, any more news?” Kaleb asks.

“We’ve still got the Orlando wolf bust. The kids are having Sirius Black troubles, apparently, but these three,” Hotch says, waving a hand over at Cassius, Edgerton, and Reid, “say that they're probably going to be fine. Apparently they've been working an innocence case for the man, he was sentenced without trial and one of the apparent victims faked his own death. Likely, he showed up because someone tipped him off that they might believe him. However, Reid, Edgerton, Blackwood with the doctorate- you are all in charge of making sure the kids stay alright.”

Cassius nods emphatically, and drags Reid and Edgerton out of the room. Kaleb grins at Garcia and Morgan.

“Other investigative teams are shuffling. Morgan stays with Garcia, but Blackwood without the degree, you're with Gideon, Elle’s with Morgan and Garcia, Mordechai stays with me and JJ,” he says. Despite being the unit chief, Gideon seems happy enough to let Hotch run the show for now, possibly because he’s nervous and has set at least two more plants on fire since the meeting has begun.

Garcia doesn't want to poke the already irritated dragon. She’s surprised that wrapped itself up so easily, but they have two telepathic high-powered shapeshifters, a witch, a werewolf, and another shapeshifter that’s apparently somewhere near a thousand and eight hundred years old, along with a dragon who’s a. been flying under the radar, b. could have either prophecy or telepathic powers (and while most would guess the latter Garcia would place her bets if she was going to on the former), and c. cannot have his age determined because apparently draconic aging is the only thing more complicated than T’karian rate of aging, which, according to her purple-eyed pocket full of lightning, can slide around prior to adulthood based upon who the individual interacts with.

Garcia, if she’s going to be honest, tuned him out.

-

Elle shuts the door to Garcia’s room as soon as all three of them are inside.

“We need to poach him before anyone worse does,” is the first thing out of her mouth.

“Kaleb?”

“Yeah. He perfectly copied at least three people while we were in Florida. I'm worried what will happen once he’s considered up for grabs. I mean none of us know the guy particularly well, but… he’s not a terrible person, and I wouldn't wish getting picked over by the CIA and the State Department upon my worst enemies,” she says. Garcia nods.

“They're letting him pick his team from pre-approved candidates, right? I can figure out who’s approved and who’s not. They're not going to give the BAU more shapeshifters, but if we picked out a couple we like… I mean, I haven't exactly had much to do over the last day or so. Monster man is kind of technology-phobic.”

“Most magically raised people are. Moondancers are the exception to that rule,” Elle says. Garcia nods again.

“So. We pick and choose who we think will be, A. not transphobic, B. not homophobic, C. not antisemitic, D. not racist, and E. people that Kaleb might actually like, because if he’s on loan to the federal government we might as well make the stay easier” Morgan says.

“You know, someone’s going to say this was too much. To them, we say: we were bored, he’s nice, we’re nice, what did you expect?”

To the untrained eye, one might think that they're doing quite well, that nothing could possibly go wrong.

However, things have a way of going to shit when one’s not careful, and as they run damage control on the arrest of Sirius Black and prepare for an onslaught of pre-teens, and as Ariela Potter enters security for her flight to the States…

Well, let’s just say that the prickling feeling on the back of Elle’s neck and the smell of rot in Ari’s nose are not because of air conditioning or bad meat.

And that there are more fixed eyes upon them they know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all know the drill. 23 (the one where shit happens) isn't up until 24 is done. I have no way of knowing how long that's going to take, and after 23 aside from a general few endgoals in mind I'm more directionless than before
> 
> Check me out on @youcannotbesirius on tumblr for shitposts and art!


	23. graylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Big Fight is here. That's it. That's all there is to this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha. pointless notes at the beginning is pointless.

The simple fact of the matter is that Derek Morgan is very tired. Mordechai has joined them in Garcia’s little techno-cave from time to time, offering advice on what kind of animal attacks to search for, but in simple words, they’re stuck.

Until, of course, Derek notes some funky wording at the side of the screen on December Nineteenth. The specific date is important because December Nineteenth at three in the morning is when Ariela Potter touches down at Dulles International Airport, and December Nineteenth at four thirty in the morning is when she officially goes missing.

December Nineteenth at five thirty in the morning is when Derek and Garcia make their discovery.

It's a location. One specifically only for Lowell, who they haven't even had a chance of finding specifically for  _ weeks _ now.

It's five thirty two that morning when the BAU learns that their arguably favorite T’karian is missing.

It's five thirty six when Cassius Blackwood hightails it out the door to search for her.

It's five forty by the time the rest of the team thinks to follow him. Hotch plays with his new fire in the car, bouncing it between his fingers and keeping it muted enough that it doesn't burn Derek or Elle, who sit as far away from it as they can.

The ride to the warehouse is long and grueling, even with Derek making every use he can of the advantages of having a siren to use and going thirty miles an hour above the speed limit. He counts Hotch asking Elle about various modes of teleportation at least seven times, a twelve minute conversation on the upsides and downsides of Apparition, and a ten minute one on the pros and cons of Portkeys, which Elle seems to swear are some demon’s work. From the way she's describing them, Morgan really has to agree. They sound awful.

The drive is still well over an hour in length, even with Derek going as fast as he possibly can, and if the sounds inside the warehouse indicate anything, their friend has decided to take the obvious shortcut.

There’s a deep, tumbling growl from the building, that shakes the concrete and their car when they pull up. It’s followed by a higher in pitch but equally loud yowl, like that of an angry mountain lion. Derek grabs his gun as he’s leaving the SUV, but it’s not going to do any good- it’s loaded with lead, and it doesn’t even have a silver jacket or a wolfsbane core.

In short, the only one that’s going to be of any use in a wolf fight like the one they’re walking into, besides the one (or two, though Derek feels that if Cassius had tipped off his much larger shadow there wouldn’t be a fight right now and Lowell would have a silver or wolfsbane slug lodged in his heart already) that’s already in there, is Hotch, and the dragon knows it.

Derek and Elle, however, both know that Hotch hasn’t successfully transformed yet, and they all know that there’s no telling how big he’s going to be once he does, making an indoor transformation a possible massive liability.

So, they stand there, three visual humans, only one with magic other than fire, only one with a possible adequate defense, and only one that’s running the numbers on the chances of Cassius surviving without all of them busting in to save his ass, for about ten seconds, while the reality of what they’re doing sinks in.

And then, the group’s only true human soldiers on, eyes bright, gun loaded, hoping at least the noise will startle the werewolf enough for Cassius to maintain the upper hand, breaking the stillness. Hotch and Elle follow his lead, crouching behind the door, waiting for the right moment.

Right as Derek moves to break down the door, three things happen.

The first is that a pale-furred, red-eyed wolf is thrown through that same door.

The second thing that happens is a darker, green-eyed wolf bursts through after him.

The third is that Elle Greenaway has a much bigger scar to add to her collection.

-

Ariela Potter wakes in a tiny, tiny box. It feels, to her, like a coffin at first touch (though she can’t exactly tell after that- she’s too busy panicking and thrashing around to give it any more thought).

She’s very clearly, at least to her, stuck. The smell of dirt wafts into her nose, and she struggles more. Buried alive? She is buried alive, with who knows how much dirt above her head, a demonically evil werewolf above her as well, and no knowledge of when or even if help is on its way. She doesn’t know how long she’s been missing- perhaps she’s been gone for so little time that she does not even count as missing yet.

She grits the teeth that can crack bone like nothing and kill in less than a minute if she places them in the right spot and digs the claws that can rip arteries open with ease into her own palms. They are useless here, like wings are useless, like light is useless, like lightning is useless, like  _ she _ is useless, not knowing if anyone is digging down to save her or if she is to wait here until she gasps her last breath in pain and afraid.

That fear is almost paralyzing. Almost. Soon enough, it gives into anger, but the result is still the same- she thrashes, she breathes heavily, she wastes the oxygen she has left.

Then, for a moment, like she’s seeing it for the first time, she feels calm.

_ ‘I have died before,’ _ she thinks, ‘ _ It is not frightening _ .’

The spots near her eyes begin to glow. She remembers, remembers how the queen with the crown like the antlers of an elk looked down on her and said she had unfinished business, how it was not her time yet, remembers how much the Queen of the Dead reminds her of Hermione.

Goddess, she thinks. Goddess of death, the same way Hermione is divine in moments, the same way how the Golden Queen and Ronald Weasley are fire made flesh and bone, how they crackle with it and smoke will steam from their mouths if left to stew in their own juices.

The same way that Ariela sees herself in the steel-grey eyes of the silver killer, with her quick wings and quicker venom.

They do not quiver at a little box beneath the ground. Ariela, even as young and relatively incapable as she is, remembers that, remembers that she is more than human, that even things that would be the worst nightmares she’d have eight or even five years ago cannot stop her now.

“I have survived before. I have clawed my way out of this shit time and time again. I survived the Dursleys, I survived Voldemort- three times. I am not an apex predator for nothing, and  _ this will not stop me, _ ” she hisses to herself.

She glows brighter in rage.

“You’re a shape-shifter, Ari. Surely you can figure out how to get out of a box and out from under- what, two meters of dirt?” she growls. The sound reverberates, shaking the nails of her little coffin loose, and Ari, trapped under several feet of dirt, smiles to herself.

The yowl shakes the ground, too. She can hear the sound of a car- hearing like hers goes both ways, after all- and the sound of a nail popping out. She pushes upwards experimentally. The ground is looser than she thought- maybe she’s not six feet under after all.

_ ‘You are stronger than you look,’ _ she reminds herself. Her arms barely strain with the weight- it’s not tightly packed above her at all, and while the walls around her are clay, the soil above her is potter’s soil- easy to move.

First, she pushes with her arms. Then, once she has enough space, she lets her legs do the work. Finally, she sits up as high as she can, places the roof of the coffin (which is a little under a meter or so above the rest of said coffin) on her shoulders, and pushes with everything she has.

-

Cassius Blackwood is losing, badly.

Maybe it’s because he’s facing off against one of the cruelest, strongest, and most terrifying semi-infectious Turned wolves in the world. Maybe it’s because his charge is somewhere on this property, alone and afraid ( _ ‘or not alone and even more afraid,’ _ a dark voice whispers in the back of his head,  _ ‘it happened to you, after all.’ _ ), and he’s terrified out of his goddamn mind and trying as hard as he can to get to her before anything worse happens.

Maybe because, in the back of his mind, there is still that thirteen, almost fourteen year old boy so overcome with fear he cannot move until he is nearly wasted away and his whole shape craves water, until he hurts from his everything and feels so disgusted with himself that steel wool cannot scrape away Lowell.

Cassius blinks back awake when a swipe from Lowell digs into his side harshly. That’ll leave a mark for a little while, at least until he can heal himself. Frankly, his ability to heal is the only reason he’s not littered with (old) scars like Ian is (though he still feels the echoes of them, deep beneath the skin, where he’s been torn to shreds). He counters with a swipe of his own.

The differences between Moondancer-wolves and real wolves put him at a disadvantage, now. His fur might be long (good for shaking off attackers- it’s why the mane of a male lion is so big), but it’s also easy to grab, and the same goes for his tail, and his ears, for that matter. The only thing Cassius has going for him right now is the fact that, like a gray fox, he’s got semi-retractable claws, and those claws are  _ sharp, _ and Cassius has plenty of strength to pour into his hits.

Speaking of hits-

Lowell doesn’t  _ feel _ much stronger than he did fifteen years or so ago. The longer they fight, the longer he notes the pauses in Lowell’s strides, the slowing of his hits, the hoarseness in his breath.

_ “Don’t you ever slow down?” _ the other wolf growls. He has a stitch in his side, clearly, and it’s only anger that’s keeping him going.

The world, for Cassius at least, slows down. He feels as if he can move a thousand miles an hour and travel around the world in a day and a night (and if accounting for teleportation and/or planes, he probably could). The simple fact of the matter, of course, is that the moment can’t last forever, but he wants it to.

This is the moment that Cassius realizes just how small and breakable Jason Lowell has always been. In his nightmares, he seems larger than life, but now… even in his semi-bipedal form, slowly sinking into a true wolf shape, he’s small. Larger than Cassius, at least on two legs, of course, but on four…

And Lowell is not some master strategist, either. Now, Cassius sees him for what he truly is- a cruel bully who has bullied others into following him, being cruel themselves, or keeping their mouths shut. He has stayed out of their lines of sight only by using cash and never taking things in his own name, and when he did slip up- that was when they’d caught him.

_ ‘He is a pathetic excuse for a monster in the closet,’ _ Cassius thinks in this moment of silence,  _ ‘I face more frightening beasts every day.’ _

It is true. Cassius may still remember the thirteen year old boy who stood frozen as the creature in front of him murdered his Pack, but he remembers other things as well.

He remembers being eighteen and already in medical school, hunting down killers with Ian by his side for the first time, remembers how right it felt. He remembers helping, too, being there when memories were too much and being there to leach them away. He remembers getting his badge at twenty-three and his practice license at twenty-five, remembers that even this piece of shit couldn’t stop him in his tracks.

_ ‘I am one of the five most powerful Moondancers on this fucking continent, and that’s counting Atara,’ _ he thinks to himself,  _ ‘You don’t scare me.’ _

He musters as much strength as he can into his legs, and pushes off into Lowell, breaking through the heavy door. He blinks for a second, and slams into the other wolf again, ignoring the cry of pain behind him.

He has some unfinished business to take care of.

-

Elle is very, very confused.

First things first- she has an open wound in her abdomen, now. Well, it’s not exactly an open wound, per se, more of a sort of torn bite, but it’s still an injury, and here she is, sitting in bloodstained clothing, definitely in shock, waiting for the only surgeon in her group to get done fighting the utter piece of shit responsible for at least ninety percent of his adolescent trauma or at least switch out with the guy responsible for healing at least some of it so she can get some medical attention.

He is definitely busy, though, busy fighting a cream-colored wolf that doesn't look nearly as scary now that she sees he’s at least a hundred pounds lighter than her friend in wolf form. Cassius is all stormclouds and lightning- a deep, dark coat with a light belly, broken up by the occasional flicker of white. In short, he’s far more intimidating when the both of them are only wolves, with a bigger frame and thicker fur and quicker legs and-

And more endurance.

That's what he’s doing, Elle realizes in the moment. He’s holding ground so someone else can kill him. Even for a person as objectively monstrous as Lowell, Cassius can't find it in him to kill a man. Elle would applaud him for his integrity, but she’s sitting on the ground with a werewolf bite in her stomach. She’s not exactly happy with his decision to favor the guy who’s made their lives so much harder over the last few months over the rest of them.

Well, obviously, he's not favoring the werewolf. But he is favoring his Hippocratic Oath, and if Elle didn't know how much that meant to one’s average doctor she’d yell at him to break it in a heartbeat.

Elle resists the urge to ask Hotch to fireball the light wolf, knowing that if he did so it would risk hurting Cassius and that they don't have the slightest idea where Ari is.

And then, Morgan takes his shot.

It’s only to the werewolf’s shoulder- one of the few spots where Cassius isn't- but it’s close to enough. The wolf isn't fighting with near the strength from five minutes ago, and Cassius, the wolf that can run a thousand miles in a single stretch, is nothing but endurance.

Elle wonders to herself if he's ever tried dogsled racing. She bets he’d love it and whatever musher he’d work with would love him.

Cassius’s claws are raking deeper, more like those of cats than those of dogs (she remembers- Moondancers have sharp claws, werewolves don't) or wolves. He’s practically dripping blood, but he’s stronger, faster, and smarter, and knows how to work the terrain. Elle finds herself transfixed by the fight, and by how Cassius seems to be completely changed.

He stands tall, like he’s realized that this man he’s been afraid of his whole adult life is small and miserable and weak, and that he has absolutely not spent as long as he has working with law enforcement for nothing.

If she’s going to be honest, with the light across the horizon from the soon to rise sun turning the blood streaking his back gold and framing his fur like a halo, Cassius Blackwood looks like something out of a fairytale.

Of course, fairytales aren't so filled with gore. They don't feature wolves duking it out to the death in the middle of Nowhere, Virginia, USA. Usually. Elle has to admit she hasn't exactly read that many fairy tales recently.

She knows for absolute certain, however, that fairy tales don't feature royally pissed off T’karians bursting from the soil like a zombie attached to a rocket.

That, she would remember.

-

Cassius stands his ground.

Lowell is tired. He pants and winces with every step and tucks his front left paw (from the shoulder where Morgan shot him) under his body. However, his posture still screams cockiness, even after Cassius has gouged chunk after chunk out of his much thinner, mangler pelt, even after the winner of the fight is clear and any wolf other than this sickening bastard would have conceded long ago.

He limps forward with a sickening smile. Even from where he stands, Cassius can smell the rotted flesh curling off from it, like he’s staring into the pit of death itself. Lowell’s entire mouth is a single rotting pit. Cassius is glad he doesn't have any bites from the wolf to worry about.

Elle gives out a shout of pain, and Cassius winces, pinning his ears back to his head.

Right. He does have at least one bite from that noxious cavern to worry about.

Cassius turns his attention back to the blond and cream wolf, who licks his chops expectantly.

“Still can't kill me, Cassie?” he… almost purrs. A shudder of revulsion goes down Cassius’s back. He can hear Ari’s growl from where he is, but the T’karian stands down- this is his fight, his business to finish, so he can finally move on.

His wolf to kill.

“Not yet, Lowell,” he purrs right back, sheathing his claws as best he can. The cream wolf jerks, and growls.

“It is Lycaon,” he snarls, stepping forwards. Cassius rises again, fear vanished entirely, and takes a step forward, knowing there’s only one way this fight ends.

“Do not speak to me of gods and monsters, worm,” he replies, eyes cold. Lowell takes a trembling step back. Cassius advances again, voice low.

“I have killed monsters that, had you been placed beside them, would have seemed like demons to an ant. I have hunted  _ humans _ that have made your worst look practically domesticated. Do not take the name of the worst and greatest of your number in an attempt to frighten me, Jason. You have not done that in a long time.”

It happens, almost, in slow-motion. First, Lowell trips, exposing his belly. Next, Cassius places his left paw on the wolf’s neck, and raises his other paw, unsheathing his claws.

“Your name is Jason Lowell. You are a rapist, a Turncoat, and a killer,” he snarls, and looks down at the face of the wolf that once tormented him so.

“But you are not a god among beasts.”

“What about your oath, Cassie? Do no harm?” the cream wolf asks, seeming to think he’s found himself an out. Cassius snorts.

“Do no harm is nebulous, but leaving you alive is clearly the more harmful option, Lowell,” he purrs.

“ _ Lycaon, _ ” the wolf growls.

“Whatever.”

Cassius brings his paw down, severing the vital arteries in a single movement. It’s rather catlike, he thinks, too catlike for a wolf, but he doesn't mind it.

Cassius turns to the conglomerate of humans, soon-to-be-werewolves, dragons, and T’karians (although really, there’s only one of each, and sighs.

He takes three steps before he blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooohkay. The drill is known, 24 isn't out until 25's done, and yes, I do have goalposts in mind for what I want to do (I actually planned this fight on its basics all the way back around chapter 10! Including some of the dialogue!).  
> I've also written a lot of complex story ideas within the last several months I've been writing the thunder rumbles that I want to flesh out (which is why this is the Fur and Feathers universe, aka fur (tails, ears) feathers (wings) of t'karians, indicating this is a more T'karian-character-focused series). This will likely get a sequel, but I've also been watching a lot of The Librarians and getting serious Put Amitai Vitzik There fic vibes from it (Amitai is another mixed-species fledgeling character, and is alluded to in ch24). Hit The Ground Running fuses a storyline I've had on back burner with Lowell's several packs with Ian and Cassius's storyline and the main Numb3rs crew. And yes I'm keeping Mordechai with the BAU team because I think he'd fuss over them and I think that's cute. Also human profilers + magic problems seems interesting.  
> oohkay if you've read your way through this note you deserve something of a reward... Cassius is the only character I can seem to draw right but I hope to get Dragon Hotch up on my deviantart soon
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/theorderofassassins/art/glow-up-802667085
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/theorderofassassins/art/Through-The-Fog-772062601
> 
> (the first one's called glow up because it's better than the second one, which was earlier)


	24. sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> help them they've fallen and they can't get up (not really)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm! not! dead!

Cassius wakes up not long after he passes out, in the back of an ambulance with  _ his _ werewolf fussing over him.

“Hi, Ian,” he says, voice soft. The sniper smiles, reaching his hands out towards Cassius’s.

“You really need to start waiting for backup, you know,” he says. Cassius laughs.

“I had backup, asshole, it's just that only Morgan decided to try anything to help,” he replies. There’s a snort from behind Cass’s head, and he looks up to see his cousin.

“Hey, jerk!” he croaks.

“Hey, asshat,” Kaleb replies, before meandering out of the ambulance. Cassius sits up to watch- Kaleb goes to Elle immediately, fussing over her like Cass and Ian do each other.

“You think?” he asks his partner in anti-crime quietly. Ian nods, and squeezes Cass’s hand.

“Pair-bonding. By the time her second full moon rolls around they're going to be inseparable,” he replies.

“Try the first. I know that I stuck with you long before some lunar phase,” Cass chirps. Ian laughs, a deep, joyous sound that Cass doesn't get to hear as much as he’d like.

He struggles upwards, light filling the little space, as his wounds close. He doesn’t mind the risks of healing himself like this- he’s well aware that he (and any other shapeshifter, enhanced healer, or long-lived individual) is predisposed to cancer and it hasn’t struck him yet.

He slinks his way out of the cot, grabbing on to Ian’s arm for stability as he makes his way out of the ambulance. Elle waves from where she’s seated, and Hotch looks distinctly uncomfortable, like he’s feeling guilty or something.

That makes Cass’s stomach turn. He knows that the dragon means well. He limps out as best he can, steady with Ian by his side, and smiles at the gathered group of people.

“So.”

“You killed him, I am guessing?” a smooth voice calls. Mordechai slinks out from behind the ambulance as the paramedics gear up to go to another call.

“You’d be right, Lucky,” Cassius replies. His right leg feels like pins and needles where he’s had to heal it, and he leans on Ian harder, resisting the urge to curl his face into a wince. Mordechai stalks up to him, and places Cassius’s head in his claws.

“You will not do shit like that again. You may not necessarily be vital to the function of this team but you’re sure as hell vital to the function of yours. You have a job to do and you need to be alive to do it,” he says simply, releasing Cass’s head from his grip. The Moondancer snorts.

“I got into that fight trying to do my job, Lucky. Ask the fledgeling, she got herself buried alive,” he replies. He sounds angry, on first listen, but his voice quivers just a little.

“You were worried about me!” Ari shrieks with delight from across the little circle they’ve organized themselves into.

“Of course I was worried about you. Why the hell do you think I filed Manifestation-type international foster care paperwork? That stack’s over a foot deep!” he cries in response.

“What?”

“Yeah, even if they didn’t do all that much- which is not the case- you’re still in an unsafe home environment and you’re a damn Demeru, nobody’s going to challenge it in court without being scared they’re going to get assassinated by invisible hitwomen, at least as long as whoever would challenge knows what a T’karian and a Demeru are, anyways,” he replies, as easy as breathing, or easier, considering breathing hurts just a little at the moment.

“Oh,” Ari says quietly, “Yeah. Do I have to sign any paperwork? Do I even have a social worker?”

Cassius shakes his head, which also hurts. Ian laughs at him, but not for long. They’re all deadly quiet, now.

“So, now what?”

It’s Morgan who asks that, sitting cross-legged on the loamy soil. Cassius blinks at him like he can’t believe the man asked such a question.

“Business as usual, Morgan. Ian and I take care of the kid, we all chase killers, and we all fall into bed wondering if the lives we save is worth what it does to our own,” he replies.

Elle laughs so hard Cassius worries she’ll pop her quickly healing scabs back open. Cassius doesn’t know what she finds so funny about that, and to be honest, he’s a little worried that she might have snuck some painkillers for herself.

He doesn’t have much time to think, because after this, his and Ian’s shoulders are home to a combined seventy-ish pounds of T’karian fledgeling, the individual in question looking far too proud of herself for making them her perch than she frankly should be.

They walk back to the car in a stilted manner, both trying not to dislodge the oversized cat-bird-person or injure Cassius again. It’s a lost cause, because the second they begin, Cassius laughs hard enough to give himself a side-stitch, Ari goes tumbling onto the ground, and Ian is filled with even more worry than before. Cass waves the both of them off, and laughs harder.

“So this is what it feels like to have the weights lifted off,” he says softly, once they’re in the car, traveling the now two-hour (since Morgan may still be driving but he’s driving the speed limit since they don’t have an excuse not to anymore). Ian sighs.

“Only a little of it. It never goes away completely.”

“To crippling childhood trauma?” Ari asks from the other window seat. Cass almost laughs again.

“Actually, for me, it was adulthood trauma, I had a perfectly nice childhood. Cass here knows, he’s met my parents,” Ian replies, poking their soon-to-be foster daughter in the nose. Morgan stops the car.

“To overcoming traumatic memories and being kick-ass while doing so?” he asks. Hotch turns around from the passenger seat as well. Cassius has the feeling that if Elle and Spencer and Garcia and Gideon (and even Mordechai, even though he doesn’t know what the T’karian has experienced personally) were here (the first among them going straight to a magical hospital in DC accompanied by the purple-eyed T’karian), they’d be turning to face the center of the car, too.

He’s struck by just how many of them have pushed past barriers that have permanently stalled others, and barriers put up just for them, their respective traumas included. He is in a car filled to the brim with people who have persevered.

“To a car full of badasses, and to the ones that aren’t here! May we kick ass and keep people safe in the years to come!” Ari chirps, thumping a clawed hand on the back of Morgan’s headrest.

“To the heaping pile of stubborness that’s kept us alive this long!” Ian agrees, though he doesn’t cause any potential damage to the vehicle.

Cassius is calm. He watches the weak dawn light of the middle of winter filter through the trees as they drive home, and smiles.

-

Michaela, as it turns out, isn’t too late.

Her daughter isn’t, either. Davina Simon shows up with a Turned wolf pack at her back and one at her feet- a gift, she says, for those that helped rid them of Lowell. She’s just barely not-on-the-run anymore, as one of the main Moondancers of New York and a vital asset to conflict deescalation, and she’s angry- there’s a fire in her eyes, when she sees Ari (and when the two Aris see each other). A kinship, if you will, born of pain and majesty.

Davina’s mother assists with the victims. That, apparently, is the “what now” that Derek finds himself thinking of. There are too many of them, he thinks. There are pups and the wolves that have controlled them for years hiding in every corner.

He has to give it to the East Coast Moondancer Association (or at least that’s what  _ he’s _ calling it) though- they've stepped up, in a big way. Jason Lowell is still a pain in the ass even after death but if the thousand-something Moondancers in the country are all working together to root up the original cause of the problem, maybe they'll actually get something done.

(Of course, apparently, most of the thousand-something Moondancers are confined to a few states, the most notable among them being Texas and Alaska and New Mexico, except apparently Moondancers in Texas deal with pet tigers as often as they deal with werewolves, Moondancers in New Mexico have organized their wolf packs to cause trouble for ICE in solidarity, and a quarter of the dogs in the Iditarod are bored werewolves and their Moondancers.)

Derek finds himself learning more about human-base shapeshifter culture in this past week than he has for several months of working with multiple different shapeshifters of that exact type. It's confusing beyond belief, if he’s going to be completely honest.

It’s less than a week until Elle goes through her first transformation, which she says is fine, but from what Derek’s heard from the Brooklyn pack, first transformations are immensely painful, so he doesn’t exactly believe her. But Elle’s always been the type to hide when things hurt her, and he’s not surprised that she’s hiding this, too.

Until one of the younger members of the Brooklyn pack mentions something when he asks the young woman how much it would hurt to go through something like that.

“I mean, if she’s pairbonded with the taller Moondancer she’s probably fine, you know? The first transformation is only more painful because we’re not used to it, the later ones aren’t any easier. Having a Moondancer would help no matter how many full moons she’s gone through,” she says.

“Pairbonded?” Derek asks. It’s an odd term.

“Oh, that just means they’re kind of stuck with each other. They probably fit well together before she was Turned and now that she’s a werewolf, she needs his help to stay anchored. Werewolves can either Packbond- like we do with the Simon family, though Packbonds usually need freakishly strong or multiple Moondancers to keep them together, and we’ve got both- or they can Pairbond, which means a single werewolf and a single Moondancer. Like the shorter Blackwood, the more powerful one, and your sniper friend, Edgerton.”

Derek gives her an odd look.

“Pairbonding is usually platonic. I’ve never seen romantic pairbonds between Werewolves and Moondancers that didn’t have a massive pack involved- that’s the Continentals, obviously, they’re kind of legendary in werewolf circles, though I’ve also heard that there’s a pack that works in Fish and Wildlife- but don’t take my word for it, I haven’t exactly been around this block for very long,” she says.

Derek nods, and sits down.

“So, what’s it like, shifting with a Moondancer?” he asks. The woman laughs.

“Easier, for sure. Smooth. We can shift when we want, too, instead of only on full moons, which gives us better control on those full moons in addition to the control our Moondancers give us. Plus, even in a big pack- they’re friendly, and they’re close with everyone,” she replies. Derek outwardly hums, inwardly hoping that Elle will be able to have safe and painless transformations in the years to come.

-

Ari and Mordechai are an interesting duo, Aaron has to say. Clearly, the older alien is used to taking care of children, and he fusses over her like Cassius and Ian do. Aaron wonders how the two of them would react to Jack (and knows that Haley would probably kill him for suggesting it. Unless she was holding the camera. He’ll suggest it.).

Around her soon-to-be-legal guardians, and the seventeen hundred year old mythical being in the room, Ari’s behavior seems rather kittenlike, and it does funny things to the dad section of Aaron’s brain.

They’ve slept in a  _ pile _ for crying out loud. Sometimes with extras to boot- he’s seen Elle and Kaleb napping there too, and at least once, after the okay has been given to put them all back on active duty, Morgan was at the base of said pile, protected by magic on all sides  except down.

Aaron is surprised one morning when Haley marches him out the door at five in the morning and waves to something in the trees. And something in the bushes. And something next to the body of the house, which turns out to be a rather small dragon, that Aaron assumes is Gideon.

He sighs.

“I'm assuming I'm going to shifting boot camp?” he asks the love of his life, who laughs.

“Absolutely. I don't want Jack setting magic fires if we can't put them out,” she replies, “Now figure out what you look like in dragon form so I can boast to my sister, who has been insufferable since she learned she married a wizard.”

Aaron salutes her, and follows the trail of the various mythical and interstellar beings that have crowded around his home.

“Why does Cassius call you Lucky?” he asks Mordechai. If he's going to be figuring things out for the next few hours, he might get the answers to a few of his questions.

“Chai is eighteen in Hebrew. Chai also means life, and it’s a lucky number, therefore since Life isn't a good nickname, hence Lucky or Lucky Number Eighteen, which is what one of my friends called me a long time ago,” he replies.

“Hai.”

“ _ Chai,” _ he says, a bit of roughness at the back of his throat, “but don't worry about it. Most people can't-”

Aaron gets it right on the next try. He's never been one to like mangling other people’s names. Mordechai laughs.

“So, are you sticking around?” he asks. Mordechanods.

“Maybe for the next few decades or so,” he replies, “I’ve earned leave, might as well spend it here instead of spinning my wheels.”

Aaron smiles. They’re in a park, he realizes, one with a large enough clearing. There’s a barrier all along the edge- anyone with photographic equipment would be nudged to go to the other park across the street and anyone else would have a glamour applied over their eyes and ears.

He sits, in the center of this park, with a dragon, two T’karians, two Moondancers, two werewolves, and a small handful of his humans (his, he thinks- he does hoard them, just a little bit, doesn’t he?) surrounding him, and listens.

Gideon’s advice is the closest. Aaron listens to it- listens to the idea of instead of focusing on anger and fear, to instead focus on the desire to do something, the desire to protect instead of to react- the kind of thing that drove him to become a member of the BAU in the first place.

Focuses on that little shred in the back of his mind that still remembers being small and hurt and afraid, and instead brings it to the forefront, remembering how protecting the weak is strength and goodness in its purest from.

He opens his eyes to a smaller group of people than he’s remembered them being, and a far different form of moving. He looks back on himself- he’s long and slender and massive in his draconic form, completely unlike Gideon, who appears to be built for more strength than speed. Aaron is brighter in color, too, though still dark- a deep red instead of a soft black. He wonders what other dragons look like- he hasn’t exactly met any.

The sun rises, bathing Aaron in light. He feels like elegance, like he’s older than time, and stops, for a moment, to remind himself that he isn’t.

_ ‘You can fail,’ _ he thinks to himself,  _ ‘It’s easy to fail. But you’ve got one job, and that’s protecting people, and you need to stay on top of that, even if it means bursting your own ego bubble.’ _

So he simply relaxes, and enjoys the sunrise, sliding back into a fleshy form less than a twentieth his full size- the form they know him in, the form he knows himself in. It is no less him now than it was three weeks ago.

Most importantly, Aaron Hotchner accepts. He accepts his duty, and his inability to change it. He accepts that there will be things thrown at him that he cannot control, and he understands that not all of the beings that stand before him may survive the coming year.

_ But. _

But he is the kind of creature that can twist things to advantage, if it comes to that, and heavy in his claws now lays the cost of that power.

He’d once heard a saying, passed to him from Mordechai, and to Mordechai from some Demeru cousin, and to said Demeru cousin from the kid he’s desperately trying to keep alive.

_ ‘With great power comes great responsibility, indeed.’ _

-

“You know,” Hermione says on the first day of the second term, “Something’s changed.”

“Yes, obviously, something’s changed, she’ll have dual citizenship once she turns eighteen, she’s got a way out, that’s vividly different than what it was before,” Ron replies. Hermione shakes her head.

“She carries herself differently. Look. And it’s not about relief, it's…”

Hermione can't find the words, for once. Ari takes pride in that, as she does in many things these days. She keeps her head held high and her eyes forward, spine upright.

_ ‘Everything’s different,’ _ she things,  _ ‘I'm a goddamn princess, and I just saw my legal guardian in a fight to the death in front of my face.’ _

Ari snorts, swatting away a fly with her tail as she sits in the sun that the Room of Requirement has made possible, below a wide window that lets her see outside the castle but doesn't let the outside world see her.

“I can hear you, you know,” she says.

“Oh, we know,” Hermione replies, sounding initially snarky, but Ari can hear the warmth behind it as her friends sit next to her on the warm cushion by the window. Hermione snaps her fingers.

“Resolve! That’s it! You seem resolved.”

She is.

It is a deep feeling, one that reverberates through her chest. She has a purpose, a plan.

“I'm not the only missing or once-missing fledgeling,” she says, voice like steel under velvet, “Not even the only one in Europe. There are so many like us, too, little ones that need to hide, that don't know what they are, what they can do. And they’ll find their people eventually- those like us always do- but in the meantime-”

“So, a supernatural social worker, but underage. I like it,” Ron says.

Ari smiles, and presses her face to the glass, watching the sun rise with wide eyes, and listens to a call in the back of her mind.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

On the East coast, a boy with golden eyes lies still, careful to stay quiet and not wake the beast who now calls herself his Alpha.

_ ‘You can't wait another year,’ _ he thinks,  _ ‘She’ll kill them all if you let her.’ _

He cries out in his mind, desperate to hold the connection before it breaks, reaching out while he still can.

Across the world from the green-eyed witch, a blue-eyed fledgeling stills in his hunting. He’s already listened to her call once before, had lifted off in search weeks ago in response to the ferreting little feeling in the back of one’s head that comes with the territory of sharing something, and has found something else instead, but something still itches in the back of his mind, a new task she asks of him.

_ ‘Find them,’   _ he thinks.

A girl, younger than any of them, feels the tug wrap like a coil of lightning around her heart. The fire sings at her touch, but she takes to the sky as if it has never mattered, dodging electricity and rumbling thunder on her way to her goal.

In a castle-turned-school in Scotland, a teenage girl named Ariela Potter takes her face away from the glass, and smiles.

“They’ll find each other, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. 25 done but not gonna be posted until 26 is done. anyways all 3 of the minis mentioned near the end are fun and will be Important eventually.


	25. sirius black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sirius black is in a holding cell, for his own protection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, 26 took longer than expected

If only it’s ever that easy. Thoughts, and words, and actions. Sirius Black sits in a holding cell and thinks about how he could have phrased this better.

It’s not bad, obviously. He hasn't been given the Demenor’s Kiss- in fact, he’s not even under Ministry control, if one really considers it.

Sirius Black is sitting in an interrogation cell in Quantico, Virginia, with an angry (what he thinks  _ might  _ be a six-limbed dragon in human form) agent in front of him. It’s a cool, collected anger, obviously, better than he’d expected from an American (or a dragon!) but he’s still not out of his cuffs, yet.

“And you won’t be,” a voice calls. It’s another agent (not a dragon this time, though, and did he say that out loud?), nearly as tall and theoretically nearly as broad, but there’s something about him that screams vulnerability and need-to-be-protected.

“It’s called Image Influence,” the young man says, “It’s a basic facet of telepathy and empathy. One of the less invasive types. All it really does is makes sure the person or persons targeted do not register the user as a threat, or in scenarios that they likely wouldn’t anyways, places a temporary ‘protect me’ compulsion over them, though anyone of sufficient strength can either recognize or beat the compulsion.”

“So you’re saying I’m magically weak, then?” he hisses, rocking in his chair.

“No, for a wizard, Mr. Black, you’re actually quite strong. I’m not speaking of wizards or witches when I speak of those who can resist Moondancer or adjacent compulsions. There are much more powerful beings among us- my associate, for example,” he says, indicating the dragon to the man’s right (Sirius’s left).

“Where’s my goddaughter?”

“Back at school now, obviously. If you mean generally, we recently managed to pull manifestation citizenship and foster documents- rather quickly, but I assume T’karians get special treatment when going through the system- wait- HEY MORDECHAI!” he yells suddenly, leaning over his seat.

“You don’t have to yell so loud, you know he can hear you,” the dragon mutters under his breath.

“YEAH?” a cacophonous noise answers through the loud box on the ceiling. Everyone in the interrogation room winces.

“Oh, okay. So did you get, like, fast-tracked or anything?” he asks, much quieter this time.

“Oh, absolutely. It takes more time for mixed-species because American legislators tend to be assholes and they think we’re assholes too, and that we wouldn’t notice our fledgelings being shafted, which, to be fair, sometimes we don’t. But anyways, to answer your question, yes, we do get to skip most of the red tape. Sometimes it’s nice to have a weird section of the government with fancy memory replacing pens on your side,” this ‘Mordechai’ replies.

Memory replacing pens(?). Huh. Sounds more effective than Obliviation.

“Oh-kay, back to business. Since it would be more than unfair to take Miss Potter away from her new,  _ extremely _ competent guardians, we’re not going to do that-”

“Also that would create a logistical mess, we’d get yelled at by a large amount of interplanetary level beings, that sort of thing. Basically a domino effect,” the dragon cuts in.

“As I was saying, Miss Potter is going to stay with her current foster fathers, as they know what they’re doing. And we are discussing this, instead of you getting the Dementor’s Kiss or, more kindly, me going into your head and doing the mental equivalent of pressing random buttons until one makes your mind explode, because we are absolutely sure of your innocence.”

Sirius’s head jerks back up at that.

“ _ THEN WHY AM I STILL HERE?” _ he roars, then pauses. A feeling of unfamiliar calm sweeps over him.

“That’s nice. That’s a nice feeling, Kaleb. Thank you,” the dragon says, looking just as sleepy as Sirius feels. The self-proclaimed Moondancer- Kaleb, he now knows his name is- just snorts, and snaps his fingers.

Both of the other men snap awake again.

“You’re here because even though we’re certain of your innocence, we don't have the evidence to back that up in court. Ask Hotch- Hotchner- here, he’s the lawyer. But anyways. Do you have literally  _ anything  _ that could help your case? Because while the magical sector of the U.K. never bothered with any extradition treaties with the US, we legally can't protect you forever,” he says.

“Peter Pettigrew, the one who actively sold out the Potters, is alive and is a Death Eater. I heard from some of the school gossip that McGonagall would be able to attest to this as well. The problem, however, is that he escaped and most of those who were aware of the issue to begin with were Obliviated, likely by the rat himself.”

“Obliviation is an easy fix if you know what to look for. It doesn't erase memories completely, it just writes over them until they're inaccessible, which is why the neuralyzer is inherently the better piece of equipment for memory alteration,” Kaleb hums, drumming his fingers on the table. Sirius squints at him.

“Who has my goddaughter?” he growls.

“My cousin, Cassius Blackwood. You might have met him, actually, if I'm correct about how old you are. He turned twenty-nine in August, Hufflepuff- would have been a first year in your sixth, actually,” he says. The name does ring a bell somewhere in Sirius’s skull, but he doesn't know quite what it’s about.

“Is she… safe, there?” he asks, knowing it’s unlikely he’ll get custody back if this motley crew of beings has fought so hard for that very right.

“Cass whipped me into shape after he moved to the States. We’re practically the same age, but he’s always been the most dad-like out of my cousins when the chips are down. Ian’s one of the most terrifying guys I know- could kill a man from a mile or more away, I bet- but he’s just as fiercely protective as Cass if not more so, and he’s a big marshmallow when it comes to kids. She’ll be fine,” he hums, and pulls out a vial of Veritaserum- or at least what Sirius thinks is Veritaserum. He’s never been sure about that kind of thing- Potions isn't exactly his strong suit.

A strange Muggle device is wheeled into the room.

“A taped confession on Veritaserum that it’s recorded that you consented to will likely go a long way to swing any judge or jury,” Hotchner, who’s been rather quiet during all of Blackwood’s ramblings, hums, before beginning to fiddle around with whatever-it-is.

“Think Pensive, but not as easily fiddled with by you British witches and wizards,” Kaleb explains. Sirius makes a curious noise, but doesn’t question it otherwise.

-

“What makes you so sure about them?” Hermione asks, leaning across Ari’s legs to snag a book. Ari laughs.

“I just am sure. I don't know who they are- hell, I don't even know their names-”

_ “There she goes, sounding like an American again,” _ Ron grumbles. The Room of Requirement has stretched enough to allow both him and Cedric to move comfortably at the same time, and Ron’s deep orange draconic form takes full advantage of that fact.

“My  _ point, _ Ronald Weasley, is that they’re powerful, and we need to keep an eye on them. The first that answered- he seemed like he’d already gotten his bearings, seemed tired and fed up with me, like he’d already heard me out before. I know I was acting strange enough last term, if he was closely related enough…?” she trails off. Hermione nods.

“Probably. If he seems to have landed on his feet, he’s probably nothing to worry about. You said that the little dragon, while crazy firey and definitely underweight-feeling, seemed fine, too, so what about the East Coast Beta?” she asks.

_ “Are we going to talk at all about the fact that she managed to communicate with three different magical beings in vastly different places across the globe or am I going to bring it up only this once and we never speak of it again?” _ Ron asks, voice still warped and deep but still light, all at the same time (Ari knows it's because he's the baby version of a much larger and more powerful creature, but it still freaks her out).

Ari cocks her head.

“I don't know if it was really communication. It felt like the werewolf and the other T’karian were picking up most of my slack- I think they’ve both got Moondancer in there somewhere- and the dragon- they might be like us, or like the A team, or like the Queens and Fenrir, or like…” she says, trailing off again.

_ ‘Or like the Lady of Death and her guardians,’ _ she thinks,  _ ‘But they don't feel like that- connected through time and space like the rest of us are. They feel separated, like each is their own entity,’ _

“They could just be the most powerful that aren’t already shielded,” Ron offers, back in his human shape, “You said it yourself- the East Coast Beta sounds like a Moonwolf, and that it felt like something was pulling you there first. He could have established the connection with the most powerful beings he had any access to- Blue Eyes via their shared Moondancer-ness, you through Blue-eyes, and the fire-feeling hatchling via proximity to power the connection long enough to ask for help,” he says.

It is quite simple, and Ari will have to remember to thank him for it. And for reminding her that she needs to start shielding herself is she’s going to be associated with telepaths for the foreseeable future.

“So, what are we thinking about East Coast Beta?” Hermione asks, taking a look at the little doodles Ari’s made of the three beings that she’s contacted.

“Needs to get out of his home situation and then book it as fast as he can in the most favorable direction. West is most likely. If he can meet up with blue-eyes, that’s more than what we could ask for,” she says, snatching the sketchbook back away from Hermione. They’re silly doodles, really- she doesn’t know what they look like, not at all, with the exception of the fact that the hatchling glows, the Moonwolf has a gap in his teeth, and her fellow T’karian has bluer eyes than the sky, like hers are greener than the Killing Curse.

“He probably won’t, not for a while, at least,” Hermione says cryptically, taking Ari’s tail feathers in her hand and smoothing them down. Ari giggles, and toys with Hermione’s hair in retaliation, snatching her tail out from her friend’s grip with a single swift tug.

Hermione gives her a look. Ari gives a look right back.

In one coordinated movement, they both turn their eyes to Ron, who lifts his hands in a premature surrender. Ari uses her tail to grab him by the arm so that both her and Hermione have access to his hair, which he’s finally gotten to look the way he wants it to after it’d spiked like dragon spines.

“Oh, come on!” he yells, but laughs anyways, retaliating with dust to Ari’s wings, which gets him an angry growl.

“Do you know how much time I’ve spent preening those?” she shrieks in mock anger, puffing up as best she can, like she sees Hedwig do when she’s upset, except on most of her body, Ari has neither fur nor down, and therefore, the effect is not as intimidating as she might wish it was.

“Way more time than you should, princess!” Hermione bites. Ari huffs, pretending to be hurt, and sticks her nose in the air, though the smile that pulls at the corners of her lips and the skittering, frenzied energy of her tail suggests anything but.

They’re good, her friends are. The best.

Even still, though, when the siren call of forgetting lures her in, she remembers. She doesn’t like to think about it, but she remembers.

_ You do not deserve this, _ it whispers,  _ You will wake up one day and still be in that cupboard. You have not escaped. _

“To crippling childhood trauma, indeed,” she whispers to herself, quiet and far away enough that one would need ears like hers to hear it.

She sighs, leaving Ron and Hermione to their scuffling antics, and leaves the room, Fizah a shadow behind her as always.

“Will it ever get better? I mean, I’m out of there now, you know? So it should, right?” she asks aloud.

“I’m not exactly the best one to answer that, kid,” Fizz replies under her breath. Ari could snort at the use of “kid”- developmentally, she’ll probably pass Fizz in a few years.

But she’s right. She’s not asking the right questions to the right people in that regard, and she’ll likely have to wait until the summer for an opportunity to have a real conversation about it. She doesn’t really know who the best choice to ask about it would be, either.

She’ll find out eventually. She has the time for it, after all.

-

“You know, this would be much easier if they digitized their records,” Garcia grouses. Mordechai, flipping through pieces of parchment, snorts.

“Trust me, you need to thank Kezi and her team. They digitized as much as they could grab quickly- invisibility might be a help but it’s not very functional for staying there for significant periods of time,” he replies, nudging a taller stack over to Reid with his tail.

“What are these, anyways?” Elle asks, tossing her far smaller pile of papers down on the desk, irritation rising with every moment.

“Every single report from both the night Black allegedly betrayed the Potters, the night before, the night after, and the night of, the day Black was caught and the days directly before and after, and two days after the escape of one Peter Pettigrew, accused by Black of being the actual secret-keeper and betraying the Potters, and everything we know on the Fidelius. And this is on overtime because A. The magical division doesn’t want to deal with it because politics are a pain in the ass, B. We have a guy that reads 20,000 words per minute, and C. the kids mailed it to us, anyways,” Cassius replies, pointing at Reid and grumbling while sorting through his moderate stack of parchment.

“The kids are  _ thorough, _ yes, but why didn’t  _ they _ digitize their files. We know they could, we sent them in with computers and ways to charge those computers,” Garcia replies, also grumbling. Reid finishes his stack of papers. Elle slides hers over to him covertly.

“Guys, most of these are meaningless drivel-”

“Which they should have actually read before making poor Cedric have to smuggle copies out of a government building,” Elle growls under her breath. Kaleb, who is busy reading the various spines of various books he’s smuggled in from various places, leans into her quietly for support. Elle shudders, but calms, grabbing onto his shoulder for stabilization.

It’s weird, having a Moondancer, but it’s nice, too. He’s a manipulative little shit at times, but he’s her manipulative little shit, and she feels protective over him, even though he’s a grown man and is fully capable of protecting himself

She thinks, sometimes, that them protecting each other might really just be them protecting their own self-interest, and then she remembers that it just circles back around again and again and it doesn’t really matter anyways as long as they can trust each other and watch each other’s backs.

She stands, and Kaleb follows her, outside to where it doesn't smell of old paper.

“Good old books smell like marshmallows, actually,” he mutters quietly. Elle laughs.

“They  _ do _ , don't they?”

“I could always go in, pretend to be-” he begins, and Elle’s eyes widen, recognizing exactly what he’s proposing with the change in subject.

“No. We both know that’s a bad idea, Kaleb.”

“It's better than the Demeru ‘burn it all’ backup plan,” he replies, voice flat.

“One or five pieces of paper less does not equal the T’karian military raining fire from the heavens,” she snaps back. The cold false calm that Kaleb’s placed over her washes off, and her eyes flash red.

“Elle-”

“And I hate to say this, because I'm going to sound like a selfish bitch, but you know what? I  _ need _ you here. Literally. So I don't  _ kill people _ on the full moon, Kaleb. So sit the fuck down, because you're not expendable anymore. You have a job to do and I am going to make sure you do it.”

Kaleb’s face softens, for real this time. Elle smiles faintly. He’s not as fluid or confident under all his bravado as most would think.

“You've made your point,” he hums, “but I think I’ve gotten a better idea, since you seem to be in favor of keeping me in check.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Mordechai.”

“Oh, no, mister,” Elle says, poking a finger directly onto his just-a-little-bit-crooked nose, right where the scar that crosses it meets the bridge, “We are not roping some other poor shapeshifter into playing the seducer.”

“No, Elle. He can turn invisible, remember? We’d just need to create enough of a distraction that he could pop his eyes open without then being noticed,” he replies. There’s a real light in his eyes, now.

“Legally, that’s still stealing and the evidence isn't admissible in court,” she says.

“Oh, no, that’s not for this. No, I'm kind of useless for this at the moment. Nah, I like having a plan in place. You know. In case it all goes to shit?” he says.

Elle nods.

“Always ten steps ahead of the rest, are we?” she asks, elbowing the (her) Moondancer in the stomach.

“I guess. Do you want to go to my apartment and help me finish my leftovers before I overcrowd my fridge?” Kaleb asks. It's a drastic change of subject, but to Elle, it's a sign that he’s warming up to not moving through adult life by himself.

“What the hell are we gonna do when the brass reassigns you?” she mutters under her breath. Kaleb doesn't react visibly, but she knows he’s heard her.

She hopes he knows something she doesn't.

-

Cassius knows he can be a petty bastard sometimes.

It's a fact of life. The grass is either green, dying, or dead, the daytime sky is either blue, cloudy, or there’s a natural disaster occurring or about to occur, and Cassius Blackwood is a petty little shit that holds a grudge.

He doesn't hate Sirius Black, not really, at least.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the man not having a clue who he is.

Except for the fact that one of his closest friends during his formative years was a werewolf and Cassius knows that he was the only active Moondancer during any of the man’s Hogwarts years.

He’d been approached by Remus Lupin once, when he was a second year. Adrian had scared the older wolf off, he remembers, but Cassius wonders what might have happened had things been different.

What he really wonders about, of course, is how in the hell did four moderately sane adult men decide that the man who sounded like a comic book evil henchman was the one to trust with the safety of the only family containing children amongst the group

_ ‘He’s not intentionally cruel or anything, but he is absolutely an idiot,’ _ Cassius thinks,  _ ‘And he’s not getting the nestling back.’ _

Cassius has fought the worst of his demons to protect that kid, he’s not letting someone with no childcare experience get custody.

_ ‘Hey, Cassius?’ _ The question comes from Kaleb, who’s clearly long gone,  _ ‘Do you think I'm a weird stiff robot man? Elle thought something about it.’ _

Cassius ponders this question. Kaleb wears so many faces all the time that it's physically impossible to tell which one is correct, but-

_ ‘You're a little stiff when you know there’s no point in acting any other way, but I wouldn't call you a robot man,’ _ feels like the correct answer.

There’s a pleasant feeling from the other end of the line, similar to the contented pleasant feeling that Ian’s radiating.

Cassius yawns, and picks up to begin to leave. His eyes catch Mordechai’s, and he smiles.

_ ‘Now there is a well-oiled tin man if I've ever seen one,’ _ he thinks, and offers up a smile.

“We’re creatures of tooth and claw and they don't even know it, do they,” the T’karian hums. Cassius wonders if he’s talking about them- the obvious answer- or if he’s talking about the humans, with their tenacity, how they grip on and don't let go like they've got a harpy eagle’s talons on their fingers.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's both.

The elegant (perhaps too elegant) other shapeshifter inclines his head, and smiles secretively.

“You still know more than you're telling, don't you?” Cassius grouses, but it’s nothing more than false agitation.

“Good night, wolf,” he says. Cassius smiles, and tosses his head up, laughing at the look behind the brown contacts in Mordechai’s eyes.

“Good night, Lucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha. do not ask me how sirius black got there so fast... i will tell you. fizz yeeted him across the Atlantic ocean. jk but she did smuggle him over there. yes that might be a more interesting chapter, but basically they drugged him and sent him via unauthorized sort-of portkey.  
> Anyways. No 26 until 27 but 26... some of the funnier concepts I have are in 26 tho and I love that. also the A team is back. And we've got basically nothing on the Baby Squad.


	26. depths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more sirius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asdfghjkl... this took too long

Ari dives into the water of the Black Lake at five in the morning in January on a dare.

It’s not from the twins, surprisingly enough. The dare is from a cackling Fizah, who still hovers high above the lake.

Five o’clock Ari doesn’t know why three o’clock Ari thought this was a good idea, but she’s at least glad she’s wearing swimwear instead of her robes like the pseudo-bodyguard who she is ninety percent sure is high out of her mind at the moment had suggested.

It’s cold. That much should have been obvious, but Ari, being a complete and utter fool, hadn’t realized that meant  _ she’d _ be cold.

She’s grateful for her clear third eyelids now- they slide into place with ease, which means at the very least she won’t be blind Down There.

The depths of the Black Lake are… deep. Ari doesn’t exactly have anything else to compare them too. She stiffens her tail and uses it as a rudder to swim deeper, at least as deep as she can before her lungs give out.

Her ears hurt. Ari’s decently sure it’s a pressure thing from going down deep and fast, because when she flies too high too quickly her ears do the same thing. Either way, she keeps diving, squeezing her nose to release the pressure before continuing down.

Soon enough, her light is the only usable light down there, shining into every crack and crevice that she can make it. She makes an amused chittering noise as best she can to the few merpeople that stop by to see what this stupid air creature is doing so deep, points to the mud and her fist, and waits for consent of those she’s found to take it back up to the surface.

One of the merpeople- a guard, likely, from their weaponry and armor- nods, and Ari grabs the soil, careful to avoid going up to fast and giving herself nitrogen bubbles.

Her tail is turned sideways to let her swim like a shark or a fish instead of a dolphin or one of those merpeople on the seafloor, since her feet in her proper skin, no matter how well suited they may be to running, taking flight, climbing, or grabbing things, don’t exactly fit in a pair of flippers and Ari is about ninety-five percent sure she’s allergic to gillyweed.

Then, she inhales.

It’s a spur-of-the-moment decision, really, a true “fuck it” moment, because there’s not that far to go before she reaches the surface, she’s a shapeshifter, and it’s not like she’s gasping for air.

It works, of course. It’s probably why Fizz dared her in the first place, and she’s heard a few stories about T’karians being able to edit things around on the fly, so it’s not exactly out of her realm of possibility.

It’s nice, breathing underwater. She can stop to appreciate things as the mud slips out of her fingers and back towards the ocean floor.

She blinks, once, twice, then hastily places the rest of the mud in a scuba bag and bursts back through the surface. Her first few frazzled wingbeats consist of coughing up the water in her too-large lungs as they switch back, gills disappearing from her neck.

“It’s cool, right? Most fledgelings don’t figure it out until they’re at least my age,” Fizah says, confirming Ari’s suspicions. Ari herself tosses the bag of mud towards the almost-burry figure with the smoky-topaz wingtips.

“What are you gonna use that for, anyways?” she asks. Fizah grins as they land, tail lashing through the air.

“I bought climbing roses online on request from your friend with the computers,” she says, “Deep-water soil makes  _ unbelievable _ fertilizer.”

Ari can’t help the giggle that escapes her. Fizah Gedhi, the former ultra-obsessive and still active pseudo-bodyguard of hers, conspiring with Penelope Garcia to buy flowers off the Internet.

“Hey! Don’t judge! Roses are pretty and they smell nice!” the other T’karian whines. Ari giggles harder, digging her claws into Fizah’s arm for support.

The other T’karian snorts, and delicately pries the fledgeling’s claws off of her.

“No, it’s great. You said the roses’d be coming in about now?” she asks. Fizah nods.

“Actually, I didn’t, but you’d be correct anyways. It’s like-”

“Like fruit trees! You plant full plants in the winter so they’ll have enough nutrients in the soil to fruit or flower for you later,” Ari chirps. A laugh finally escapes Fizah at that.

_ ‘What are we gonna do,’ _ Ari thinks,  _ ‘There’s no way it’s fair to keep you here, Fizz.’ _

-

Back in Virginia, the squadron of who’s focused on Black’s case has disassembled again, since the rest of the team has an actual job to do and aren’t on leave. That leaves a separation-anxious Kaleb, an attached-at-the-hip Ian and Cassius, half of Garcia’s time if they’re lucky, and  _ sometimes _ a half-panicked Elle chattering with her Moondancer about how to calm herself the hell down without accidentally killing someone.

Cassius is still of the opinion that Kaleb should have gone with them. Mordechai might be excellent at killing things, but they don’t want Elle dead, that much is for sure.

Either way, they’re absolutely stuck.

Kaleb, though he may be rather intelligent and masterful with manipulation, is  _ so fucking stupid _ at times, which is likely why he’s suggested infiltration and theft of documentation not once, not twice, but  _ six _ times.

Cassius has had to resist the urge to slap the younger man himself. No matter how disconnected and awkward he may be at times, Kaleb is not an idiot, and he should not act like one.

The clock is ticking on the time they have to keep Black hidden. Eventually, someone is likely to open their big mouth and the truth will spill forth, with nothing two telepaths, a dragon, and a nearly two thousand year old interplanetary being can do about it.

And so, instead, Cassius Blackwood decides to speak to the man himself.

Black’s been hiding out in one of the interrogation rooms, actually, refusing to go outside the building until they have enough of a case to at least convince the British government not to kill the man, or worse.

Cassius, though, hasn’t seen him since he was twelve. He remembers a friendly young man, with a wide smile and a short temper, and hopes that there’s some spark of that still there.

He enters the room quietly, eyes trained on the wizard at the desk, who gives him a weak smile.

“I know you,” he whispers. Cassius nods.

“You didn’t fight. I remember that much. Why did you leave the country?” he presses. Cassius doesn’t say a single word, no matter how much he wants to bite back at the man.

“You’re a stronger wolf than the other one,” Black continues, “smaller or not. You’re all good at hiding it, but no amount of masking or disuse gets rid of that.”

Cassius hums in assent. Moondancer power does indeed atrophy like an unused muscle, one of the reasons why bonded wolves and those with large packs are more powerful than isolated or new Manifests. He’s surprised Black is able to pick up on it, really, but by all accounts, the man’s Animagus form is a Grim, and would therefore be able to tell the differences in strength between them.

“All?” he asks, finally. Black smiles.

“The dragon. Hotchner?”

“Ah, yes,” Cassius replies, with a bit of an internal jolt. Being able to sense power is one thing- species entirely another. Black must read the concern on his face, and sighs.

“He smells like fire and scales, like you smell like ozone and fur and your- cousin?” he asks, and continues with a nod from Cassius, “Smells like water and fur. Distinct, though, not like wet fur. Salt, too.”

“Kaleb has always been the better swimmer, that’s for sure,” Cassius offers with a faint smile. Black’s demeanor changes.

“You’re the one they awarded custody of my goddaughter to, aren’t you?” he asks. Cassius finds himself standing, spine straight, and staring Sirius Black dead in the eyes despite their notable height difference.

“And what of it?” he hisses. Black’s hands go up in a show of surrender, and Cassius relaxes, sinking back down into his chair.

He blushes awkwardly.

“Sorry, I- She’s a good kid. A  _ smart _ kid. I’m not going to let her get hurt again,” he says quietly. Black snorts.

“Believe me, I understand. Would you mind telling me about what she’s like now, though?” he asks, sounding almost desperate. Cassius smiles a warm, gentle smile, and rests his long, faintly crooked fingers on the table.

“Skittish, for a start,” he says, “But getting better. Quick on the uptake some of the time, but easy to distract- I was the same way at her age. She’s smart, but primarily practical in her knowledge base, and she knows basically nothing of the human sides to the magical world, outside what she’s learning at school. She’s gotten a crash course in werewolf politics because of the Lowell case and an obvious crash course in T’karian politics, but other than that, not much, really. She’s still learning, though. She has the time.”

Sirius smiles. He looks so  _ sad _ when he does, and there’s a tiny part of Cassius that’s still the world’s most stereotypical Moondancer and wants to bundle him up in a blanket like a tiny burrito and hide him in a nest under the bed until he’s better, but Cassius’s rational brain reminds the rest of him that this is a grown man and an accused murderer and Death Eater that he’s staring at, not some lost foster kitten.

He’ll go home tonight and fuss over Ian like the man’s nearly died (again) to sate his overprotective instincts.

He notes, however, that half the time the man seems to just be nodding along, and realizes he has probably zero clue what about a quarter of the terminology he’s been using even means. That’s fine, Cassius supposes, it just means that he’ll need a crash course in whatever they need to teach him too, on top of whatever the fledgeling needs to learn.

Cassius closes the door behind him quietly, shakes his head, and moves along.

They’ll be able to fix things later.

-

“You know, they really need to start asking us if we’re able to help,” Akiva states, looking down at the text that Aviv’s received from their mixed bag of agents and adjacents finally asking for help.

“I  _ know, _ right?” the werewolf replies with an exaggerated wave of her hand. They’re walking in one of the more well-managed sections of Aviv’s territory, which is such for an obvious reason- there are about thirty horses on the property, split between those she’s been managing and those Akiva’s been managing.

This, of course, is not relevant beyond pointing out that both are creatures of immense nostalgia, since neither require a horse to get around- in fact, in his real skin, it’s actively nearly impossible for Akiva to ride one, and Aviv’s werewolf-ness has been known to startle animals, and the breed that Aviv’s been working with has, in the human world, been extinct for over a hundred years.

However, nostalgia, no matter how powerful, has never kept Aviv (and, more importantly, Atara, considering she’s objectively the meaner of the two) from cracking skulls, and from the contents of the information they’ve been given, she may very well need to do just that.

“We’ve been hiding fugitives since this country was established. Before that, even. Literally nobody here would bat a damn eye as long as we vocally say he’s not a Death Eater. And what do they do? Hide a man in a holding cell and hope they don’t notice,” she huffs. The T’karian continues to look over her shoulder, as the texts keep coming.

“We should tell Avalanche and Atara, you know. All four of us need to know if something’s up if we want to continue to be a cohesive unit,” he hums. Aviv spins around and places a stubby finger in between his oversized eyes.

“You’ve been stuck with me for over two hundred fucking years and you don’t think I know that?” she hisses in mock anger, puffed up like some sort of housecat. Akiva rolls his eyes and turns to leave.

“Nuh-uh. You’re going to pick the guy up with me and threaten him for not bothering to take care of your cousin,” she hums. Akiva’s ears swivel back. Aviv grins.

_ Now _ she’s got him.

The T’karian is well over two thousand years old, but he’s still easy to predict (well, aside from when in combat- his whole talent there, after all, relies in being unpredictable).

“No biting, I assume?” he asks, voice faintly strained. Aviv nods.

“But feel free to yell at him,” she offers. Akiva snorts, and his tail flicks through the air like he’s upset, but he nods and continues along. There’s a spark in his eyes now, like he’s thinking of ways they could get away with this.

Aviv’s glad for it. He’s not had a proper project of publicly humiliating members of a judicial body for decades, and neither has she.

“This is going to be fun, but also a fucking nightmare,” she whispers to herself.

-

The silence in the Gryffindor dormitory is broken by the frustrated screaming of an unhappy T’karian fledgeling at around five o’clock in the morning when her best friends wake her up, snickering, with a full bucket of ice water.

What they don’t expect, of course, is a tail-lash across both of their faces (though a light one, because Ari is nice and doesn’t want to hurt her friends) and said unhappy T’karian fledgeling rearranging her mussed up feathers for the proceeding twenty minutes, to the disbelieving faces of her friends (who are mostly disbelieving because she’s been sitting in an ice-cold wet bed for the past twenty minutes instead of doing something reasonable and taking a shower).

Finally, at around six in the morning, they all sit down in the middle of the Common Room in front of the fire, where Ari would  _ like _ to warm her wings, but apparently some of the seventh years work harder than god and therefore show up in the common room at  _ four _ in the morning. Ari’s just glad it’s still the weekend and that waking up early is entirely pointless with the exception of maybe getting to breakfast a little bit early.

At the mention of breakfast, her stomach does a small flip. She’s been finding herself a pickier and pickier eater as of late. She has never been one to keep kosher- if she had been, the Dursleys almost certainly would have forced her to eat pork all the time, not like they didn’t anyways- and her first and second year, she’d had no problems, but now-

Now, when she needs to eat more than ever, her stomach decides to be fussy, and it’s driving her mad.

She wants to gnaw on her tail in frustration, like she’s been doing on occasion, but she’s fully aware that the activity may cause her feathers to fall out early (and missing tail feathers is essentially equivalent to no flying until they grow in again, even though she’s molting  _ now _ anyways), and besides, she can’t exactly gnaw on her tail in a room full of humans.

It’s while she’s contemplating saying ‘fuck it’ and chewing on her tail anyways when she has a moment of realization, or, more specifically, a moment of realizing that they’ve all been complete idiots and talking to the teacher who actively knows that what they’d be doing is the right choice might not be the worst idea in the world.

“SHIT!” she screeches, loud enough that Crookshanks, who has been sitting in the corner, startles. Those in the common room that aren’t studying stare at her in amusement as she groans and slides down onto the floor in frustration, while those who are go back to their work like the outburst never happened.

“ _ What? _ ” Hermione asks, concern and humor battling for control in her voice. Ron stares at her, which makes her actively start laughing. Ari ignores the two of them until Hermione calms down.

“We should have asked McGonagall,” Ari says, voice flat. Ron is staring at her, now.

“You  _ think? _ ” he half-shrieks, which starts Hermione laughing again. Ari’s resigned sigh can be heard throughout the entire tower, it seems, and she scrubs her face with her hands.

“Oh, you love us,” Hermione scolds, ruffling her hair. Ari rises to her feet and storms away in mock anger, but turns back before she reaches the portrait hole.

“Yeah, I do. I am indeed a sappy dork,” she replies.

-

“You know, I really don’t know why I’m sitting back here!” Sirius Black calls from the back of a horse trailer that is currently occupied by something other than himself and the weird werewolf lady that’s part of the team transporting him.

“Eh, partially it’s easier to hide you this way, partially Kiv’s mad at you for being a deadbeat godfather and leaving the child you were legally responsible for in a burned out shell of a house,” the werewolf lady says. The horse that is also in the trailer seems to be in agreement, but Sirius wouldn’t know that, because he doesn’t speak horse.

He shifts, and lays down on the bed of the trailer. The werewolf makes an interesting little sound in the back of her throat, but otherwise keeps her attention on the horse.

Sirius sighs a doggy sigh. With the rate this non-conversation is going, the ride he’s settled in for might be a long one. Sirius knows. He’s been on rides as long as four hours before.

What Sirius does not hear is the snickering from Atara, who is sitting in the cab of the truck pulling them, as she reads his topmost thoughts for assessment. Normally, Atara would consider this invasive (though she wouldn’t care, because one of Atara Pascal’s fundamental moods, and, by extension, a title of hers, is Mindbreaker, for good reason), but she’s not particularly happy with this specific man and therefore does not care.

“Four hours,” she mutters to herself, “Can you imagine? Only four hours, and it’s the longest ride he can think of.”

Of course, Atara was born prior to the American War for Independence, which means her opinions on travel times are incredibly biased because she’s used to it taking a full day just to get from a large town to a large town.

Sirius curls his tail over his nose and settles in, hoping beyond hope that they won’t hate him too much and, more importantly, that they’ll be able to help him catch the real betrayer of the Potters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no 27 until 28 is done. also I'm going to camp (tho it's a writing camp so I'll still have my computer and therefore will still be able to write some), so that might take a while.  
> 27 was so fun to write though. It's a bit more subdued, and far less funny than I try to make the other chapters.
> 
> also i subsist on validation so to everyone who left comments/kudosed/bookmarked- thank you so much!
> 
> Yes this might end up with a golden trio being a poly throuple now that I think about it, but that's waaay off since they're all like, thirteen. anyways if y'all want any particular pairings of the adults, though (despite being a huge original characters person, i actually don't like writing ocxcanon, but any canon/canon pairings that aren't creeping me out are 100% valid) please mention! 
> 
> i literally have not thought about couples at all beyond the fact that cass and ian are 100% not one and that talia/keziah (who i originally intended to be a bigger deal, but like, they're a crown princess and a negotiator, they have bigger fish to fry) is super friggin cute, so hmu!
> 
> and The A Team are horse people bc i thought that was really funny while I was writing it and I didn't want to rewrite it eight times like I did with Chapter 25 and Kaleb's characterization (he's way less comfortable than he seems with almost everything, essentially), except I did rewrite it, like twice.


	27. breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McGonagall KNOWS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back y'all

Ari looks up to the sun from where she sits on the roof of Gryffindor tower, nothing but her eyes visible, and those, barely so.

The wind rustles her feathers ever-so-gently, and she smiles.

It’s not warm, by any means- it’s still January for just a few more days, after all- but it’s the warmest day they’ve had yet, warm enough that her wings and tail do more than enough to keep her from the cold.

An unhappy cat joins her on the roof, a grey classic tabby that Ari knows well.

“Thank you for meeting me here,” she whispers, and the cat nods, curling her tail over her feet. Ari wonders if McGonagall can tell she’s different now or if she just assumes she’s under the Invisibility Cloak.

The cat stretches and rearranges, and McGonagall sits in its place, looking less dignified than usual. Ari doesn’t know what she expected her to look like sitting on top of the roof, but it certainly wasn’t  _ tired. _

“So. I assume you know where Sirius Black is?” her teacher asks. Ari nods, then remembers that McGonagall can’t see her.

“Yes. Sort of. Specifically, no. He’s in the Americas for sure, and I know someone moved him recently, but saying “the Americas” is less specific than saying “Europe” so that’s probably not helpful at all,” she replies.

“Very well. And we both know that if Peter Pettigrew is alive then there’s more to the story, so I will also assume that whoever it is that has him is looking for evidence to support his case long enough to get him a trial?” McGonagall asks.

“Yes, they are. The “Kiss on sight” order hasn’t been revoked yet, which means that even though Veritaserum is admissible in court, he won’t ever get there because his soul will be eaten by a Dementor long before then,” she replies. She lashes her tail with such frustration that it knocks a shingle loose.

“And whoever it was that collected Peter Pettigrew certainly wasn’t with the Ministry, because the ‘Auror’ that did so was found dead less than a week later, which suggests that it was someone under Polyjuice or an Auror under Imperius that was disposed of when he was no longer useful,” McGongall whispers under her breath. Ari thinks that McGonagall thinks that she can’t hear her, what with the low volume and the wind and the space between them.

But Ari can hear a mouse under snow when she’s a hundred feet in the air. She can hear whispers through the wind at far less of a distance.

“So the key thing, then, is to find Pettigrew,” she replies, and, just like she suspected, McGonagall startles.

“I didn’t think-”

“I could hear that? Professor, I hear more than I’d like,” Ari hums in reply. McGonagall makes an odd noise at the back of her throat, but otherwise seems unaffected.

“You know,” she says, a conspiratorial look in her eye, “We all saw Peter Pettigrew. And we’re fully capable of taking Veritaserum.”

Ari, not caring that her eyes are visible while the rest of her body isn’t, stares at her teacher, who gives a little jolt when she realizes what she’s looking at.

“You’re right, Professor,” she finally creaks out, color bleeding back into herself all over her body. She barely takes time to listen to McGonagall’s startled gasp before she leaps off the building, wings outstretched to catch the wind.

_ ‘SHIT!’ _ she thinks, flying higher and higher and higher until she can be absolutely certain she’s vanished from human or feline view. She flies and she flies and she flies until she looks back, and can’t see the castle anymore.

And then, panicked and uncertain, she folds her wings and drops.

-

Mordechai blinks, and holds the phone a good distance from his ear so the volume won’t distract him this time.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

On the other end of the line, he hears a snort.

“I said, the blue-eyed fledgeling that the kid mentioned sure knows how to make an entrance, and definitely knows what he’s doing. Tell her not to stress, he’s definitely been Manifested since he was little and under stress or not, he knows how to use what he’s got going for him,” Ezra barks. Mordechai can almost see the confident look on his face that many of the T’karian royal family share- like nobody’s willing to pick a fight with them (for numerous reasons, not just the legal headaches).

“Hmm. Name?”

“The Vitzik kid that went missing around when we found Zaida,” he replies. Mordechai remembers that- it had been a few years ago, long enough that even the blue=Vitzik connection hadn’t come to him. A lapse in judgement, on his part.

“Wasn’t her husband a Moondancer?” he asks, careful to step around the elephant in the room.

“Oh, definitely, but the kid doesn’t show it. At all. Presents entirely as a six, seven hundred year old fledgeling, though we both know he’s not nearly that old,” Ezra hums. Mordechai decides to bite the bullet.

“Behaviorally?”

“Oh, half-feral, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I say half because he’s a smart kid and can communicate just fine, but he’s territorial as hell, even to objective non-threats. Even Kid Britain wasn’t as aggressive as he was and we both know that it’s much more touch-and-go with the girls than anyone who identifies otherwise,” he replies. Mordechai winces. He’s right- half-feral is probably a generous term (though Mordechai would go on the other end and say quarter-feral at most- he’s used to displaced fledgelings being territorial and aggressive). 

“And you're sure it was him?” he asks, propping a notebook up on his legs, so he’ll remember to pass the information along to the fledgeling he’d met over the winter break.

“Positive. Zaida may have been Vitzik by name but she had the royal markings like Great Uncle Zedek did, and the kid’s definitely got those. Has some sort of collection of humans he’s protecting- I decided to leave well enough alone, you know like I do that displacing an aggressive territorial fledgeling like that is bad business,” Ezra replies. Mordechai hums in agreement- he’s known many fledgelings that have had their world shaken down, and it’s not pretty when they’re pried from a place they've managed to make themselves comfortable in.

“Wait, where did you say he was?” Mordechai asks. He remembers clearly that Zaida lived in San Francisco, but-

“Fucking  _ Oregon, _ ” Ezra spits with an undeniable frustration. Mordechai can almost see his expression, with pinned-back ears, bared teeth, and a lashing tail.

“What’s wrong with Oregon?” Mordechai asks innocently, knowing damn well exactly what Ezra’s talking about.

“Absolutely  _ nothing. _ That’s the  _ problem.  _ The kid’s got access to prime real estate for rookeries and he sits in the second floor of a damn Annex!”

Suddenly, the line goes quiet. Mordechai has the feeling that Ezra’s said more than he was supposed to.

Mordechai, however, does not have the additional information required to put the pieces together (yet), so for the time being, he puts the issue to bed.

“Mordechai?” Ezra asks, voice soft and thready like the cockiest of the Demeru princes is actually afraid of something for once in his royal life.

“Yes, Your Highness?” Mordechai answers with concern, the mindset of a guardsman bleeding into the one he’s grown into.

“Don't call me that.”

“Sorry, force of habit, Ezra,” he replies smoothly, “Is everything alright?”

“Oh. Um. I guess? I, uh- could I stay at your place? I don't exactly have the energy for Westchester after that shit,” the younger man replies.

“Of course, that’s why it’s called a guest bedroom, isn't it?” Mordechai replies teasingly. The princeling snorts from the other end of the line.

“Thanks.”

“I'm not going to say anytime because you people will take it literally, but please, always feel free to ask,” Mordechai hums in response. There’s something fragile in Ezra’s voice still, something that’s definitely not simple exhaustion. The princeling hangs up.

He’s worried for the guy, Mordechai realizes. Really, genuinely worried, and that’s not just the former bodyguard in him.

He’s worried for Ezra because Ezra is young and trusting and oh so stupid at times, even though he might be good in an argument. He’s worried because he’s an older sibling and that’s what older siblings do: they worry.

Mordechai realizes that he hasn't felt truly worried for someone else in  _ years. _

-

Ron and Hermione figure something’s probably happened when Fizah, panicking, drags them all up into the girl’s dorm.

Ron has literally never seen Fizah panic. It’s almost interesting, the little noises that she makes and the way that she digs her claws into her hands to keep herself stable. It's also incredibly disturbing, but disturbing and interesting have never been mutually exclusive adjectives.

Of course, the fact that McGonagall is there is far more disturbing than a nervous T’karian would ever be.

“Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, how kind of you to join us,” she says quietly. Ron hears a faint “oh shit” escape Hermione, while the other members of the Requirement team (the ones in Gryffindor, at the least) squeak nervously.

“Professor, I- We-” Hermione starts. McGonagall narrows her eyes and motions for her to quiet down, which she does.

“Miss Granger, while I am both concerned and slightly proud that you all were good enough at keeping secrets to hide an entire person from me for months,” she says, waving at Fizz, who hisses and hides under her tail feathers, “I am more concerned about the fact that we have a missing student, who could be any distance away. Now, I am sure that this lovely girl would be happy to assist in the search-”

She’s interrupted by Fizz opening the latches and bolting out the window.

“Alright,” she says, barely fazed, “Would anyone else be of help, as I do feel it would probably be unwise to share a student’s personal information like that?”

Ron raises his head and meets his teacher’s eyes.

_ ‘You are a dragon, _ ’ he thinks,  _ ‘You protect your own.’ _

“I can help,” he says, surprised by the strength in his voice. Hermione’s eyes shine with understanding, and, just for a moment, he understands, too.

_ ‘We may each have our own talents,’ _ he thinks,  _ ‘But we are nothing without each other. And I wouldn’t leave these two for the world.’ _

The open window beckons.

Ron listens.

His whole shape stretches and rearranges itself as he falls out the window, fingers growing, limbs shifting purposes-

It would be painful, if he wasn’t what he was. But any dragon, no matter how young, will not feel pain switching between itself and itself.

His type of dragon’s four limbs, he thinks, is easier than a T’karian’s six, as he pushes down with his wings. He’s met dragons with six limbs and dragons with eight and dragons with four and dragons with two. There are benefits to all of these, obviously, but Ron ignores all of them, instead choosing to follow the scent of two upset T’karians on the wind.

He’s a fast flier, he knows that much. Within a dozen wingbeats, he’s skimming over water, and within a dozen more, the castle is a small thing, far behind him.

Then, of course, because there’s always that one thing that complicates everything else, something tugs on his tail.

Ron looks back, and almost has a heart attack. Hermione, clinging to said tail, smiles and makes an attempt to wave.

“You’re not going without me!” she calls. Ron smiles a toothy, draconic smile, and lands, giving Hermione the time to crawl to a more comfortable place between his wings instead of hanging on for dear life on the end of his tail.

_ “You know, you could have just asked,” _ he says, voice deep and garbled by a different set of vocal chords, but still unmistakably his. Hermione waves him off, and settles in for a long flight. Ron, even though he really can’t, does the same, shutting his higher thinking off and just letting his nose and wings do the rest.

He will not worry about the possible ramifications. That will wait until they have their third close and safe enough to think about anything else.

His tail just barely clears the tops of the trees as he begins to climb.

-

Ariela Potter finds herself deep in the forest, the canopy far above her head, and doesn’t find it in herself to care, all that much.

Sure, it’s  _ upsetting _ , to be lost. But she’s not lost, not really. She can always fly high enough that she can still see Hogwarts, no matter how far away it is. She just doesn’t want to.

Ari kicks a rock as she passes it, and returns to visibility, skimming her tail along the leaf-litter. She can hear anything that comes anywhere close- why does  _ she _ need to worry about keeping quiet?

Through the trees, she sees a wolf’s silvery pelt, and remembers what she’d heard about the wolves here- offspring of werewolves who hadn’t made the best decisions, trapping their children in only a single skin.

Ari can’t even imagine what that’s like, anymore, to only have one shape to turn to, only one skin to inhabit, to rely on simply yourself instead of having a plethora of people to copy and to choose from.

She flares her wings irritably, knocking one against the trunk of a tree and covering the other (and her hair and ears) with leaves. The werewolf cubs startle, and move backwards. Ari is overcome with a deep sadness for them, and crouches down, a chattering noise low in her throat.

The cubs approach slowly, hesitantly, like they’re waiting for her to snap like some bargain-bin supervillain.

_ “Oh, look at you,” _ she whispers, in a tongue that’s almost never spoken on the planet she rests her feet upon,  _ “You are abandoned out here, with none to protect you for simply being you.” _

She doubts the (few week old?) cubs realize what, exactly, she’s saying, only that she’s saying it in a gentle voice, and an interesting position.

The bravest of the cubs scuttles up to her, and tries to bite at her tail. She snatches said tail out of it’s grip, and stands, claws digging into the leaf-litter.

The cubs follow her. She knows they aren’t from the same line as the litter that has grown into the Forbidden Forest pack- they’re far too young, and still smell too close to human.

She lets them tussle and charge at her tail, as she thinks.

_ ‘They have to have been abandoned,’ _ she thinks,  _ ‘We’re nowhere near a full moon, and they’re too little to be out on their own.’ _

She flares her wings again, this time to shake off the fallen leaves that have accumulated on top of her coverts, and begins to pace.

_ ‘I can’t just leave them here,’ _ she decides,  _ ‘Who knows how long they’ve survived on their own. It smells like they’ve just been dumped- likely, whoever had them raised them long enough to the point where they were weaned- they look that young, for certain.’ _

One of the cubs whines, and Ari makes her decision.

_ ‘It’s just until I can get them to the Continentals,’ _ she tells herself,  _ ‘I’m sure three hundred year old werewolves have dealt with this before.’ _

They’re sweet, the cubs are. Ari has to leave them on the ground, for a moment, so she can get her bearings, and it  _ hurts _ to do so. Maybe it’s because she’s spent so long believing that her parents were no-goods that left her to be raised by worse, maybe it’s because she was left in another country by her legal guardians and technically died less than forty-eight hours later, but abandonment has always sat badly in her stomach, and it sits even worse in there now.

East. She needs to go east.

She skitters back down the tree.

“Freeze,” a voice commands. She does so, and turns slowly, eyes wide, and back claws digging into the bark like a squirrel’s.

Below her is a small group of centaurs, all carrying weapons. In the back of her head itches her more royal instinct, demanding that she strike lightning down and kill them all for daring to threaten someone of her station.

But that is a human’s instinct, for apex predators avoid conflict when they can, and they rarely will initiate such when young are threatened.

“Who are you?” one of the younger centaurs asks, stepping forwards. She churrs in response, slowly sinking down to the ground.

This, she knows, is going to take a while.

-

There’s a wind that wavers in the air across the lake. It’s cold, even for January, and smells like rain, which is less common for January in Scotland.

Around Ari, it’s like a gentle blanket, smooth and soft, keeping her eyes forward and her focus sharper than a crystallized feather.

For Fizah, it’s a tailwind, allowing her to fly faster and faster, clearing vast swathes of forest in a single wingbeat.

For Ron and Hermione, it does much the same, though Ron isn’t quite as able to take advantage of it as his smaller, lighter counterparts.

For those still in Hogwarts, it makes the cold seep into their bones, and rattles their skeletons around in their skin, teeth chattering and bodies racked with shivers.

McGonagall knows that a wind like that is anything but good. It tastes like raw power and terror on the back of her tongue, like ozone and anger and calm and deadly all at once.

The wind whistles through everyone and everything, but it all swirls back to the girl in the forest, wings outstretched and spots aglow, a gentle smile upon a shining face, green eyes glowing through the darkness.

_ ‘I bring the wind and I bring the rain,’ _ she thinks,  _ ‘I do not need to be violent to make an impression.’ _

And make an impression, the Princess of T’kari does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter that vaguely alludes to amitai vitzik... tooth and claw will go up soon, but I have to finish chapter two of it before I dare do anything and chapter two is shaping up to either be split into two chapters or be a beast of a single. and also, i'm skipping forwards a little bit in 29 so we can actually get sirius's trial started, but I know jack about british criminal law much less law in the magical world so....


	28. trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius finds a lawyer, and wow, I am tired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *screams in pain*

It’s a fact of life that carnivores try to avoid conflict.

They posture and shuffle and growl and yowl and flare up their fur, feathers, or scales, but they try to avoid fighting, for fighting is an energy cost that’s unacceptable to something that needs to hunt for its food.

Ariela is a carnivore- that much is certain, with her long, sharp teeth and her longer, sharper claws. That much is obvious to the centaurs before her, as well, who leap back, weapons brandished.

A growl echoes through the forest, shaking the trees so much that snow drops all the way from the treetops to the mostly bare and needle-and-rotting-leaf-covered ground. It’s freezing, she realizes, too cold for how she’s dressed and how she’s posturing, but she really doesn’t care.

She’s got pups to protect and a job to do, and that means pushing past the cold and the fact that she’s  _ starving _ and her underlying nervousness to stare down whoever positions themselves as her enemy.

The centaurs take a few steps back. There is a rattling in her chest now, Ari realizes, like some sort of other beast threatening to escape. Instead, she lets it out.

The roar in and of itself scares even her. It must be audible from miles away, a massive sound that makes the trees shake and beings quiver, and nearly knocks Ari herself off of her feet.

She straightens, eyes forward, and tail coiled around her feet.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” she says, a sharp grin upon her face, “Shall we talk?”

There’s a faint, almost dizzy nod from the leader. Ari feels one of the cubs nuzzle up against her ankle.

Ari feels powerful, for a change. Her head is held high and she feels poised, ready to strike. The words flow from her lips like water from a font, smooth and clear, in a way that they have never been before.

“I do not mean any harm,” she hums, “for this forest is not mine and I do not claim it to be. However, by guest-right and Migratory Passage Treaties, I have as much right to walk amongst these trees as you.”

Her sharpened feathers, however, state otherwise, scraping against the bark upon the trunk. She hears heartbeats quicken.

Speaking of heartbeats, she hears too many. The Centaur heartbeats are easy to parse out, as are those of the pups, but there’s one…

One closer to her own heartbeat, a strong pulsing sound both completely different from and oh-so-close-to the others. It is almost silent, and the beats are so far apart that if Ari wasn’t absolutely sure whoever it is is suppressing their heartbeat, she’d likely call an ambulance.

_ ‘Hello, Fizah. Come to say hello?’ _ she thinks. The Centaurs look at her oddly once more, but finally, one steps forwards.   
“Very well. We have no quarrel with your kind, and we will not risk royal wrath by harming you,” they reply. Ari dips her head, and scoops up two of the pups in her arms. Fizah flickers down and retrieves the third, springing into the air in a single graceful movement. Ari envies her- even now, as she’s nearing the first full year of having her new limbs and appendages, she doesn’t stand nearly as well on her feet as the nine hundred year old.

They don’t realize, as they’re flying, that they’ve passed Ron and Hermione. Ron spends the next several minutes being his confused self before Ari remembers that her friends are worried about her and dashes back to get him.

-

Cassius leans over the back of the chair, staring at the upside-down figure of Hotch.

“You know Strauss doesn’t like you, right?” the man asks. Cass rolls his eyes.

“She’s more justified in disliking me than anyone else, Hotch. At least I have the distinction of being-”

“An asshole?” Hotch cuts in. Cassius smiles, grateful that the man’s gotten over the Incident, because he’s really rather funny, when one gets down to it.

“I know, but  _ hey, _ ” he replies. It’s true. Cass is mean and he’s petty and he’s hard to work with and he doesn’t blame Strauss for not wanting to expend the extra effort to make a half-decent interchangeable team player out of him.

He and Ian work just fine, after all- and there’s no reason to mess with a good thing just for the sake of it.

_ ‘You’re not adaptable,’ _ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Ian’s (but isn’t- Cass knows what it’s like to have Ian in the back of his mind, and this definitely isn’t him) whispers,  _ ‘You need to be adaptable. They’re not always going to be there, you know.’ _

_ ‘And I’m not always going to be here either. I know I’m not adaptable, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.’ _

Just as he’s looking for any excuse to leave, his phone buzzes. He gives Hotch a faint smile as he leaves.

They may be growing close enough, but Cass knows well enough that he and Hotch are wildly different people. Hotch is cool-headed, while Cass’s temper barely gives his fuse any time to burn.

“Yeah, Ian?” he asks once he’s left the room. He nods and he paces, and as he leaves, he looks back to Hotch, and rolls his eyes gently. The man works far too hard. He reminds Cassius of his cousin Ria, almost, though their work is wildly different from each other’s.

They both work themselves to the bone, and they both have something left to give to the people around them afterwards.

There’s business to be done, with the Eastern Packs. Cass knows damn well that the few they’ve cracked open- redistributing the members so they might be able to live a happy life out from under the claws of their former Alphas- are nowhere near the full number of the packs and pups that are in desperate need of that help.

And so, Cassius Blackwood, the fire relit in his eyes, holds his head high and his back straight.

He has a job to do, after all.

-

Spencer knows well that they’re lucky to have the firepower they now do on the team. They’ve been lucky so far, not brushing up against anything particularly powerful (in short, nothing that couldn’t be driven off with a few spells or bullets), with the exception, of course, of Lowell, who they’d needed a transfer to help with. But now that Hotch is a fully Manifested dragon, Gideon’s comfortable enough in his scaly skin, and Mordechai has settled in and doesn’t appear to be leaving- well.

He feels that maybe, just maybe, the chances of them winning an otherwise poor fight may have gone up by significant margins.

Then again, Elle is leaving (soon, probably), and Kaleb is likely to go with her. Spencer’s not too sad about the second one- there’s something unnerving about Kaleb, like he’s patently false, though the one thing that doesn’t seem to be is his fierce protective instinct (which isn’t a surprise- Spencer’s known Cass for years, now, and knows perfectly well how aggressive he can be with anything, to say nothing of how he is when he has active reason to be). Spencer wishes them the best of luck, in the back of his head, and hope he at least sees Elle again (she’s a good friend, after all), though he could do without seeing Kaleb play at being bubbly ever again.

One of the pieces of firepower in question threads his way through the door, head held high and purple eyes bright. That is, until he keels over onto the desk and lets out a very human groan of frustration.

Spencer has to hide a laugh, at that.

“Are you okay?” he asks. Mordechai says nothing, but grabs a shard of bone from his bag and pops it into his mouth. Spencer had thought it disgusting the first time he’d seen it, but he’s used to it now, in a strange way (to be honest, it’s still gross and strange, but he’ll deal).

“Does it fucking look I’m okay?” he shrieks finally, slamming a feathered tail into his chair and fanning his wings out so high above his head Spencer is of the opinion it couldn’t be anything but a threat display, with the sharpening colors and the deeper contrast throwing into highlight just how sharp and deadly they are.

“Not particularly, no,” JJ hums as she steps into the bullpen. Mordechai gives off a happy little chirp, before continuing to scarf down his lunch. The most disturbing part of this, of course, is when he gives up on using a fork and knife altogether and simply opts to shove the entire thing into his mouth and swallow.

Spencer gives a little involuntary shudder. He knows it’s rude, but it’s  _ so weird. _

“You have got to be kidding me,” he hears Morgan mutter under his breath. Mordechai gives him a toothy smile in reply, and Spencer wonders if they’ve ever been coated with blood before, like Ari’s had after the basement.

T’karian teeth are terrifying, in short. The canine teeth are too long and the molars are too good at cracking bone for them to be anything other than carnivore teeth, and he’s almost completely certain they’re obligate carnivore teeth to boot, which makes his omnivore-prey item brain short out in terror (which is likely, he supposes, part of their actual purpose).

“So, what’s the big deal that gets our older than the Arthurian legend shapeshifter all up in a twist?” Morgan asks. Mordechai makes an annoyed little grumbling sound, but sits up normally anyways, and swivels his chair to face Morgan normally, while picking up his legs to sit crosswise.

“Some asshole  _ shot at me _ on my way here. I am fed up with people who think I’m a duck or some shit, it’s tiring and I don’t like having to dodge bullets,” he replies. Spencer has a moment of silence for the T’karian’s former speech patterns, before turning back to him.

“Were you a duck at the time?” he asks in a deadpan tone. Mordechai blinks a few times, third eyelid swiping over vivid purple eyes.

“Holy  _ SHIT!” _ he says finally, while Morgan bursts out laughing. Spencer rolls back to his seat with a simple salute, while Mordechai looks up hunting laws in the DC area as fast as his poor keyboard will allow him to.

“It’s not legal!” he yells, finally.

“Did they shoot at you in an urban area?” Spencer shoots back. Mordechai nods frantically, then frowns.

“Damnit, but it’s a legal violation if I bring up a citation with the local Fish & Game,” he mutters under his breath. Spencer shrugs, tosses a ‘your problem’ in Mordechai’s direction, and turns back to finishing up his mound of paperwork.

-

“This is way too much paper. What are we going to do with this when we’re done? Burn it? Why couldn’t they have sent it on digital like normal people?” Atara complains from where she’s sifting through the massive pile of angry letters sent towards Black, looking for anything that might just indicate who might be willing to represent the man in court, and any indication of bias to toss out jurors if they need it.

“Why, pray tell, do you have so many people who would actively want you dead?” Akiva asks the man himself, smacking the piece of paper in his hand. The man in question shrugs, and reaches out for a piece of his own, before it screams and he drops it like a hot tomato. Akiva incinerates it.

“Be glad it’s not the States and they’re not creepy love letters like those groupie girls send serial killers,” Aviv snorts.

“Oh! I found a good one. It’s a Mr. Lovegood-” Atara starts. Akiva cuts her off.

“Lovegood is the man who runs the Quibbler. He has next to nil in the realm of power to exert,” he snaps. Atara growls back at him, but continues sorting through the letters.

“Is there no halfway decent lawyer in the entire British Magical criminal court system?” Avalanche hisses, in her white-haired human form in the corner. She’s sorting through a completely different pile of papers.

“What about-”

“No Blackwoods. They’re good at what they do, but we’re trying to convince whoever the Wizamengot picks, and they associate too much with werewolves to be well-liked,” she replies.

Aviv and Atara snort at the same time.

_ “If they were open to it, they’d find  _ associating _ with werewolves to be an excellent arrangement,” _ she mutters under her breath. Because the conglomerate of folks she’s around are mostly gifted with extraordinary hearing, though, they all hear it, which starts a series of snickers around the room.

“Oh! I think I found a good one!” Avalanche finally squeaks. They crowd around her little sheet of paper. The name’s an easy one to remember- Amanda Fawley. She’s old enough to have garnered some respect, and her family’s a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight (a name that makes Aviv snort). She’s sent a few letters offering help to Black that were confiscated early often, and she’s well-known for her acquittal rate.

“Well, everyone, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a lawyer,” Atara hums.

“Barrister,” Black corrects.

“Damnit, Sirius, do you have to ruin everything?”

The man in question lets out a hoarse laugh at that, but his face is tight and pained. Atara winces, and offers a soft smile as recompense.

“Hey, sorry, But this does mean you get a  _ barrister _ \- at least, you will if we ask for one. Would you like to write the letter to Amanda?”

Sirius nods. Atara would hiss under his breath. He likely was a childish young adult, and now, twelve years of as close to solitary as he can get has probably stunted his mental growth entirely, leaving him a shell of who he’d be.

“Would I be able to send a letter to Remus Lupin?” he asks. Atara nods. Something in the back of her head preens as being recognized as the closest thing to this four-person team has to a leader, even if she wasn’t part of it to begin with.

She just hopes that he’ll be able to work through the issues he’s got on his plate as of now. Maybe if he does, he’ll be able to meet Ari- everyone among them knows that Cassius and Ian are fiercely protective of the girl, but maybe the standoffish wolves can be convinced.

In short, she just hopes the best for him.

-

Ari clambers back through the window, Fizz, Hermione, and finally, a rapidly shrinking Ron following right behind her, and almost lands right on McGonagall’s feet.

“Oh. Um. Hi,” she says, releasing the pups that wriggle in her arms. Almost immediately, they begin pulling at the laces of the Head of Gryffindor’s shoes. Hermione laughs at that, as does Lavender, who is sitting on her own bed instead of Parvati’s for once.

“We couldn’t leave them!” she says. Fizz snorts.

“We? You made the decision, Princess. I just did my job and kept your brains from getting splattered across a tree trunk,” she replies, slapping the back of Ari’s head with her tail lightly, like she’s scolding a small child. Ari would protest at being treated like a child, but she’s well aware that a T’karian child that had grown up like a normal one would have been roughly equivalent to a six-year old and would just have hit slowdown less than a decade ago, and wouldn’t hit the developmental equivalent to a seven-year old for another several decades.

So, instead, she keeps her mouth shut, and smiles at the other T’karian, who snorts and fluffs her feathers, curling up on the small bed in the corner.

“You all are well aware I can make sure that there’s an extra full-sized bed in here for the forseeable future for your bodyguard here?” McGonagall asks, though it’s not really a question. Ari blinks.

“Of course, she’d need to show proof she’s not sacrificing education to shadow you invisibly around the school,” she continues. Fizz nods, raising a bag full of textbooks with writing on the covers that Ari knows instinctively is the written form of Non-Migratiory T’karian.

McGonagall smiles gently, and vacates the room in a swirl of emerald, leaving several confused teenagers behind, blinking at the door.

“Do you think she knows about Cedric and Luna?” Neville asks from where he’s sitting on the floor. He looks visibly uncomfortable to be in the girl’s dorm, the poor boy, but it certainly affords the privacy that the boy’s dorm simply doesn’t.

“Well, now she probably does,” Fizz hisses in response, stealing a pillow off of Fay’s bed. The girl in question releases several swears and attempts to steal the pillow back, to which she gets a faceful of tail feathers as the T’karian jumps onto the top of the four-poster bed.

Ari giggles, biting her own tail to muffle the noise with fur. The three wolf pups look tired and confused, to which Ari remembers that she needs to inform Cassius that he’s going to be dealing with more children soon.

She wonders how he’ll react to the news.

-

“Oh, you have  _ got _ to be kidding me,” Cassius hisses. He can’t stay mad, of course- one of his redeeming qualities has always been his love of children, and not only can he not stay mad at Ari, he also can’t say no to these little pups, who look at him with wide amber eyes and whine to be picked up.   
“You know, maybe we should foist them off onto that fledgeling that Mordechai mentioned that Ezra was talking about,” Ian offers from the couch. Cassius gives him a scandalized look, which starts a fit of crazed laughter in Ian that only ever seems to be drawn out when he’s tired beyond belief.

“Since when have you been listening to the gossip ring?” he asks finally.

“Since never, you were complaining about it in your sleep, and you know perfectly well that sound carries in here,” Ian replies. Cass frowns- the admittance, in there, is that Ian was awake in the middle of the night, and that usually means two things: the first being nightmares, which conveys the second, that Cass hasn’t been doing his inherent duty as a Moondancer properly.

“You know, you could’ve just woken me up,” he says, voice soft. Ian shakes his head.

“Nah, I was trying to find something half-decent on Netflix to bingewatch this weekend. Don’t worry about it.”

Of course, Cassius, being Cassius, worries. One of the pups is chewing on his hand, but that doesn’t distract him. Instead of vocalizing this worry like an emotionally stable person, however, he asks if Ian’s search was successful. The answer, of course, is yes, so instead of doing what they’re supposed to be doing (filling out the paperwork from their last “hunt”), they hop on the couch with three werewolf puppies (that Cassius quietly admits to himself are probably going to end up with the Continentals- they don’t have the time to hand raise the wolf equivalent of toddlers) and discuss the merits of different show premises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa! almost to the endgame here y'all... at least for Year 3. Sirius's trial is happening soon, chapter 29's not out until 30's done, and I am exhausted beyond belief. cannot wait to be home tomorrow, trying to listen to music while writing when the wifi keeps cutting out is a pain.


	29. spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> first timejump!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 30 is all cohesive but this one certainly isn't

Amanda Fawley knows from the second that the portkey’s done spinning her around that she’s probably bitten off more than she can chew.

Or, really, Sirius Black has bitten off more than  _ he _ can chew. Amanda’s only representing him, after all, it’s none of her business if he decides to hide with the world’s strongest werewolf pack in recent memory. The Continentals are a force to be reckoned with, and she won’t be surprised if they grabbed Black instead of him coming to them.

She’s surprised to see evidence that the people here are nothing if not under control. For a society almost exclusively made up of werewolves, she’d expected more… savagery, though it pains her to admit it. But these wolves- these wolves are surprisingly well-adjusted. She’s seen at least a few shifting-cubs, and one set of three cubs who tussle around in the dirt, making happy little growling sounds.

“Hello, Lady Fawley,” a warm voice says. Amanda startles, and looks for the source, which appears to be a muscular young woman (well, younger than her, at least) in a blue coat, with a strong jawline and vivid red eyes.

_ ‘Oh,’ _ Amanda thinks. She’s passed a few Alphas here and there, all with bright red eyes of their own, but these… a pair that vivid can only belong to an Alpha of Alphas, and the only one of those here is the boss of the Continentals, a woman she’s heard is well over two hundred years of age.

“Hello, Ms. Hadar,” she replies. The werewolf cocks her head to the side and smiles broadly. Amanda is startled by the age apparent on the frightfully young face. She wonders how many wolves are in her biteline (she’s heard it called a sire-line before, though she dislikes the terms), and if any of them have stopped aging completely like Hadar has.

“There’s a few,” another voice hums. She starts, but remembers- this is a village filled to the brim with werewolves. Not only is it an almost certainty that there will be Moondancers, it’s also almost completely out of the question for any of them to be wearing the limiters that the Ministry enjoys so much.

“Could you take me to my client, please?” she manages. Hadar nods amiably and turns on her heel. Amanda notes that the movement is precise and efficient, which contradicts the rather lackluster way the woman herself is dressed, and the haphazard scars that cross her neck.

She gets a glare from Moondancer, at that, and glares right back- she should have a right to her own thoughts, after all.

The large hall that she’d noted upon Portkeying in opens its doors for Hadar, who inclines her head as she invites Amanda in. Sirius Black is sitting on one of the stools near a tall table on the side of the hall, where a woman with dark skin and white (almost pale blue, she notes) hair and a man with poison green eyes are looking over notes.

“I just realized she’s another A name,” the white-haired woman laughs. Hadar rolls her eyes and slides into a chair, along with the Moondancer and Amanda herself.

“So, what have we got?”

-

“You’re telling me that your current legal guardians are a Moondancer just barely over ten years your senior, and a werewolf that’s best known for an unbeaten kill streak,” McGonagall says flatly, hands folded over the table.

“To be fair, Ian’s a  _ sniper, _ and he doesn’t always kill people. Most of his job is incapacitation,” Ari says, indignance rising, “And Cass has been an active surgeon for years, now, he doesn’t just follow Ian around.”

McGonagall sits back in her chair, and skims her fingers over the documents again.

“These are not the only copies.”

It’s phrased like a question, but it’s said in a statement. Ari nods.

“We’ve got at least five. Ian figured we’d need duplicates, in case one physical copy or another was destroyed, and the current list of available guardians goes down a long way because they didn’t want me going back to my half-aunt again,” she replies.

“Half-aunt?” McGonagall asks, leaning forwards. Ari blushes, and ducks her head down.

“Mum and Aunt Petunia were half-sisters- they didn’t share the same mother, from what I know, and from what Aunt Petunia used to yell at me. I’m glad, though- could you imagine the damage she could have done with- well, you know.”

McGonagall’s expression says that she does, indeed, know.

“I won’t kick up a fuss as long as you’re being treated well, Miss Potter,” she says.

That snaps Ari’s ire immediately, but all the same, there’s a wave of calm that washes over her, like her hand is being held from a thousand miles away, and in a way, it is.

_ ‘Thanks,’ _ she thinks at Cassius, though he’s probably asleep and reached for her distress unconsciously The Moondancer is strange, that way- she’s met Kaleb Blackwood a few times, and it seems to her like they’ve put their effort into completely different things. Cassius’s power levels are high, but he can’t mimic people like Kaleb can, and Kaleb can’t reach across an entire ocean to calm down a fledgeling.   
She shakes herself back into the room in time to catch McGonagall’s concerned eye, but she shrugs it off as she leaves the room.

_ ‘If I’m being treated well?’ _ she thinks to herself,  _ ‘Where was that this time last year?’ _

She digs her claws into her palms until they draw blood, while the rest of her folds back into something approaching human. She’ll never fit in quite right, of course- there will always be  _ something _ off about her, something that makes people uncomfortable to be around her, except for those who are already “off” themselves.

Ari hears Fizah’s worried chitters the second she reaches the door, and after a few moments, she faceplants onto the older fledgeling’s new bed, that has become a reservoir for extra pillows and turned into a proper nest.

“I’m so  _ tired, _ Fizz,” she groans into the covers. The older fledgeling snorts, and picks up Ari’s chin in clawed fingers.

“I might be well over fifty times your age but I’m not going to give you any sage advice beyond figure out what might keep you here past graduation and making sure it won’t,” the girl replies, mahogany-obsidian eyes trained like a hawk’s onto Ari’s own poison-green ones.

“And that would be?” she asks, feeling hopeless.

“What do you think it is? Bring the pain down on body-less and defeated by a baby for good this time- so he can’t come back- and then ditch once seventh year’s over. Or earlier, if you can take your OWLs and NEWTs before then,” Fizz replies. Not for the first time, Ari notices how the darkness of the feathers on the tips of her wings make her look bigger and more frightening, and if this is teenage Fizz, she really wonders if she wants to know what adult Fizz is going to be like.

-

Mordechai realizes, about six months in to meeting the BAU, that he doesn’t want to leave.

No matter if Elle is going, no matter if it’s been to much for her. No matter if it looks like Gideon will be leaving, too- this whole job far too much for his now-fragile faith in humanity to keep him tethered, no matter if it’s taking its toll on everyone here- he’ll still protect these people with everything he has, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how far they roam.

Something tells him- something in the way that Spencer’s eyes have a knowing look to them, something in the way Derek stays close and how JJ gets closer, how Garcia stops pausing her long ramblings and apologizing for taking too long, how Hotch opens up more and more every day- that they understand, or at least that they understand some of it.

He’s sticking around officially now, he knows, but he hadn’t expected it to be a real thing- had expected it to be a way to watch the people that are watching Ari, had expected to just be a nameless face that got drunk off his ass on weekends and reported back anything he heard.

Instead, he finds, he’s spending his weekends (and not always weekends) fussing over a team of people that are quickly becoming something closer to a Query- and he hasn’t had a Query in so long that it  _ hurts. _ He finds himself spending his weekdays (and not just weekdays) not with his ear to the ground, but by hunting the worst of humanity and beyond, by learning and working with a team and laughing at jokes and-

And  _ breathing. _

Mordechai finds himself on the roof of some building or another at dawn, watching the sun rise over Washington D.C. uninhibited by colored contacts for once, and closing his eyes, letting the wind filter through his feathers without any intervention on his part.

“You know, I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else up here,” a voice Mordechai recognizes hums, and he looks up to see Hotch- probably practicing his new (well, not so new, anymore) flying skills.   
“To be fair, I wasn’t, either,” Mordechai offers. Hotch smiles, and offers him a blanket, that Mordechai denies.

“So, why are you up here, then?” Hotch asks. Mordechai rolls his shoulders, listening to the joints in both them and further up in his wings pop, before answering Hotch’s question.

“Just thinking. It’s a nice view, you know.”

There’s a gentle whisper to the wind, now, and cirrus clouds begin to cover the rising sun, casting salmon-colored light over the city.

“Doesn’t look nearly as nightmarish in the daylight,” Hotch mutters, probably to himself.

“No it doesn’t,” Mordechai replies. He decides not to tell Hotch what he was thinking about before the dragon had arrived.

“How long, do you think, before we’re called in for another case?” Hotch asks.

“Oh, we just got in last night, I’d give it at least until proper work hours start this morning,” Mordechai laughs, before he leans back on clawed hands and takes a better look at Hotch.

“What?”

“You asked me why I was up here and I never asked you,” he says. Hotch snorts.

“Saw you up here, actually,” he admits, not a hint of sheepishness in his voice.

“So you were lying earlier, then,” Mordechai accuses, but there’s no anger in his voice, just warmth.

“I wouldn’t call it  _ lying- _ ”

“It was definitely lying.”   
They stay there until the sun’s officially risen, and Mordechai can’t hide his true shape in the wonky light of sunrise anymore. Mordechai and Hotch say their goodbyes, and Mordechai can’t help but feel… settled, now.

He smiles, and leans backwards off the rooftop, wings already outstretched to catch his fall.

-

There’s a whisper of wind as the train moves away, just below the roar of everything else. Cassius can just barely hear it, drowned out by the wheels and the movement and the sound of people.

“You know, we could have taken a plane,” Ian murmurs, knowing Cass can hear  _ him _ , at least.

“You and I both know that wouldn’t have saved us enough time to counterbalance the loss of sleep,” Cassius grumbles in response, but there’s no heat to it. They’re back in D.C., now, after a long hunt, and all Cassius wants to do now is pass out onto his very comfortable bed and ignore the whole world until his stomach decides to wake him up again.

He’s drifting, once he reaches the door to their apartment. He knows, because Ian’s teeth are in the scruff of his neck, carrying him to somewhere other than the rug where he can sleep properly instead of nap.

_ ‘G-d, what would I do without you, Ian?’ _ he thinks to himself, finally crawling into the dog bed in the corner on his own, and barking at the other wolf to go to sleep, too, before he collapses. Ian doesn’t even have the strength to pull forth his usual mirth or snarky remark that usually accompanies such thinking from Cass.

There’s a warmth beside him, and a whine, and Cassius’s tired brain immediately turns all the way on. He looks to Ian in concern.

“Relax, I’m just tired. Go to sleep, Cassius,” Ian rumbles. Cassius snorts.

“Bullshit, Ian, we’ve known each other for more than ten years, now, don’t try to keep pulling that trick on me. What is it?” he asks, nosing into Ian’s fur. The older wolf gives him a strange look, but doesn’t complain about the fussing, anymore.

“It’s been ten years?” he asks, finally. Cassius nods. Ian sighs, and tucks his nose into his tail, while Cassius rests his own muzzle over the werewolf’s back. He knows that making any “old man” comments won’t make Ian feel any better about it. At least he’s sufficiently distracted from whatever he’d been thinking about.

“Go to sleep, Ian,” he mumbles into the werewolf’s fur, and gets a snort in response. He probably won’t go to sleep for a while yet, now, no matter how exhausted he is- he has a job to do, and that means making sure that no matter what kinds of night terrors Ian has tonight, he doesn’t wake up alone.

The werewolf does as he’s told, it seems, and soon enough, the room is filled with the soft sound of deep breathing. Cassius keeps himself entertained by staring at the wall and mentally counting the amount of geckos he’s seen in the apartment since they’ve moved in. Once he’s catalogued every single one and given them all their own little names in his head, he moves his eyes over to the still-packed boxes in the corner, and considers what he’ll have to unpack tomorrow if he wants to get any of it done.

He doesn’t even begin to drift off until he’s absolutely certain that Ian’s breathing hasn’t picked back up enough to be suggesting the beginning of a nightmare, and even then, it takes far too long. He doesn’t get up and move to pace because that would wake the werewolf up, and between the both of them, Cassius is absolutely certain that the older man’s by far the one who needs more sleep, being a sniper after all.

When he finally drifts off, it’s with the gentle anchor-weight of Ian’s paw over his, and the knowledge that it’s going to be alright without him fussing all of the time.

-

Keziah Tavi catches the scent of the man who’d freed Peter Pettigrew from custody at roughly three in the morning, when the night has firmly lulled all but the most rowdy of partiers and the most frantic of students and herself into sleep. The lights from the lamposts cast an eerie yellow-orange glow over everything, turning her eyes and her wingtips a deep charcoal-black, but thankfully, the way humans interact with the depths of the night affects nothing save her vision. She, therefore, closes her eyes, and focuses on the scent of the man. After all, she’s seen a photo of him, and he’s so boring in appearance that if she didn’t have his scent and the sound of his voice, courtesy of a memory from Ari, she thinks she’d pass him on the street without a second thought.

However, she doubts it’s intentional. Most British wizards she’s met have seemed to try to give themselves some notable visual quirk or another that would stick with anyone else they meet, though she supposes a world without the Internet does have to rely more on word-of-mouth to spread rumors around, and it’s not like a hundred thousand men in the same cheap gray suit would give them anything proper to work with.

She’s been following him for an hour before he makes his way home, skull mask tucked safely into a bag and anything unusual about his robes safely hidden there as well.

Maybe not quite safely, she notes. After all, she’d seen them, and she’s certainly more dangerous than any witch or wizard she’s ever met, save a few, simply because of better hand-to-hand and quicker reaction times, to say nothing of claws and teeth that could tear apart a man in seconds.

She hides a growl, afraid it will call attention to herself, and instead crouches in the branches, watching as the man greets his wife (who through three seconds of observation Keziah determines both hates him and is likely cheating on him) and his two children (the elder of which, Keziah notes, probably explains why a woman who hates her husband so much got marries to him in the first place).

It’s when he goes back out to the backyard to drink something (and likely to harass more Muggles, if the skull mask is any indication), that Keziah strikes.

It’s not anything nasty, at least not by too much. She just insures that someone will find this man and his skull mask and robes, will find the Dark Mark he’s cast into the sky at her quiet suggestion (no matter how much it had disgusted her to do the convincing), won’t listen to him about a woman with purple eyes that had convinced him to because she’d made him forget, already.

She remembers to stay invisible until the Aurors get there, and remembers to slip just a little bit of Veritaserum under the man’s tongue. Remembers to watch the chaos that ensues from his confession from on high, where she won’t be seen and they won’t bother to cast revealing spells (that won’t work anyways, because she’s far too high in the sky for them to reach her), but close enough that she can still see, hear, and smell every little thing that happens.

She’d remembered to do this exactly when the men who would harbor the least sympathy possible for a former (or, really, current) Death Eater would be on duty, remembers to suggest to Madam Bones while wearing someone else’s skin that the man be interrogated and tried under Veritaserum instead of without, and remembers to suggest that the man’s hid for so long, that the Imperius defense must be  _ useless. _

Keziah Tavi smiles, as she leaves the Ministry. She may not be the most powerful T’karian in the ring, but skill and talent are their own kinds of power, and she’s one of the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be working on college application essays and SAT subject test prep for the next few weeks/months so I may not be able to post for a while. Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up.


	30. ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keziah tavi drags herself half-dead to her brother's house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> missing line: when keziah says "someone tried to kill me" mordechai replies "no shit"

Mordechai looks up from his paperwork to find a knife at his throat, held by some nameless neighbor or another- or. There’s something underneath this nameless, faceless man he’s never met before- a scent he wouldn’t be able to forget even if his memory was wiped a hundred times over.

“Hello, little sister,” he purrs. The knife-holder sheathes their weapon, and brings their fingers up to their eyes, to remove a set of brown colored contact lenses- the very same that Mordechai now wears- and place them in a case alongside a pair of blues. Below them is the purple of his mother and her mother before her- well, a darker shade, but a purple nonetheless.

“Oh good, it’s you, I wasn’t sure” she breathes. Mordechai catches her right before she keels over and passes out.

Nobody’s seen Keziah for  _ months. _ They’ve done deep cover work before- Keziah’s always been the better of the two at it, the scalpel to his warhammer- but she’s young, she’s never been off the grid for  _ months _ before, has never traded face after face and shape after shape until she’s bleeding out her ears from the sheer stress of attempting to keep so many identities under wraps.

He calls in sick to work that day, though he knows that the others will likely see through it- if not immediately, then eventually. He needs to know what it took for his baby sister to go missing for months on end, and what she’s found now that she’s returned.

Mordechai receives one or two concerned texts (mostly from Hotch, who probably knows better than most at this point that Mordechai’s more fragile than most people would suspect at first glance), but replies with “family emergency”, hoping they either ask someone else or get the veiled suggestion not to. He knows it’s too much to hope- they are a nosy bunch, after all- but maybe, just maybe, it will buy Keziah some time. She’s not exactly the best T’karian to introduce humans to.

His little sister moves from being passed out to a true sleep, chest rising and falling as much as her massive lungs will allow. It’s a fitful sleep, filled with little growls and snarls, and he’s almost certain his poor couch will never recover from what she’s done to it, long gouges that release stuffing all over his carpet and her secondary feathers.

Mordechai, though- Mordechai stays. He stays when Keziah blows out a bulb in the lamp next to her from some particularly powerful night terror, stays when she screams so loud he feels that his ears might just bleed, when her growling sets his whole house to shaking, the very foundation rumbling with the sound.

She’s his little sister, after all, and he has a duty to keep her safe.

It’s not until well into the night that Keziah wakes, and when she does, it’s covered with a pale sheen of sweat, deep violet eyes bloodshot, as if to mimic Mordechai’s own. The man in question sets down his mug of coffee, and slides into the seat across from his sister, who’s breathing hard, light she’s being chased.

“Kezi?” he asks, voice as soft as crushed velvet. She jerks her head to face him so quickly, and with such force, that Mordechai would normally be worried she’d broken something. For several beats, she says nothing, pupils contracted to the thinnest slits he’s ever seen, like she doesn’t even recognize him.

Finally-

“Hey, Lucky.”

Mordechai leans forwards immediately, morning-glory eyes matched with the darkest shade of amethyst.

“Kezi, what the hell happened?”

He’s noticed the bruises, but figures he’d leave it to her to tell him the story. She shakes her head, and moves as if to stand, before one of her legs collapses out from under her entirely.

“Keziah Tavi,” he growls, voice pitching low as he helps her up again, “What. Happened?”

She exhales shakily, before moving down to sit back on the couch, drawing injured legs back up to her chest. She meets his eyes hesitantly, as if it’s going to be something embarrassing instead of possible valuable information.

“Mordechai?” she asks, clutching onto his hand like it’s a lifeline.

“Yes?” he presses, bloodshot eyes wide. Keziah takes another shaking breath.

“Mordechai, someone tried to kill me.”

-

“Yes?” Mary Cooper asks, rolling a pen between her fingers, “Yes sir! Yes, I can come in for testimony that day. No sir, I don’t have any problems with- well, that’s odd. No, no sir, I’m all fine, I don’t have any problems talking about it.”

Mary does have a problem with talking about what happened to her, especially in front of some sort of shadow court where she has to wear a bag over her head the entire time, with the man who’d- with  _ him _ less than a hundred feet away from her, but if it puts the man in prison-

She will grit her teeth and do it, to protect other people, if not herself.

There’s a knock at the door. Mary Cooper looks up to see a handsome (or she thinks, at least: she knows she and her sisters have very different definitions of handsome, and wonders what they would have said about the young woman with the unique blue eyes that had convinced her to come forwards in the first place) young man with a thousand-watt smile that something in the back of her head screams at her is dangerous.

“I do believe a young woman came in here to talk to you originally?” the young man asks. Mary Cooper’s hair all stands up at the back of her neck, and pushes out of her desk, wishing she had something she could use to ensure her escape. The young man raises his hands up.

“I’m sorry for startling you, but the young woman is my sister. She came to my house seriously injured and I’m trying to make sure that nobody’s threatened you, either,” he hisses, under his breath. There’s desperation in his voice- desperation that Mary recognizes like nothing else in the world. She sits back down, gripping her pen back in her hand like a knife. She takes a shuddering breath.

“Did she tell you anything about what happened?” she ventures. The young man- which she now notes has the same unusualness in his eyes as the woman, though his are brown (with the same strange undertone that she can’t quite place) looks down to his hands, which are folded in his lap, before he speaks.

“She said that someone tried to kill her,” he replies, and she knows the tilt there- so this an older brother, then.

“She asked me to testify- in fact, that’s what I was just talking on over the phone, when you came in,” she says, and wonders if he’ll say the same “I know” that the woman had when she’d slid into the chair that her older brother is now seated in.

“Then you need to go into hiding,” he says, standing with a new fire in his eyes, “Witness protection, or the closest thing to it you have here- you need to find somewhere to hide, before they find you. No offense meant, but I’m quite certain my sister’s far more capable of defending herself than you are.”

“No offense taken, I quite agree,” she hums before she can stop herself. It is true, after all.

“I’ll go make some calls, ma’am, and see what I can do for you,” he says, and just like that, he’s gone.

Mary grabs her bag, packed with enough for a few days (she’d been thinking of going into hiding herself, if she’s to be honest) before someone else knocks at the door.

Something in Mary tells her that no matter how much the young man had unsettled her, this man with his dead eyes like a shark’s is worse. He brings up a stick he has at his side- a stick Mary remembers all too well, a stick that brings nothing but pain and death if she was lucky.

There’s no way out except for past this man with the shark eyes, and so, Mary grabs all of her courage (and the open bottle of hairspray on her desk and the lighter she has in her pocket), and lets the burst of flame hit the man right in his face.

Mary runs like hell the second the man becomes disoriented (and ignores the smell of burning flesh and clothing that would suggest she got a successful hit on the first try), right for the young woman’s older brother, who’s still on his phone. She’s let go of the spray function on the bottle, saving her liquid for later flamethrower use, but she’s breathing hard.

“Think I found the guy that tried to kill your sister,” she hisses. He blinks, once, and for a stunned moment, Mary recognizes the contacts case in his hand and the violet in his eyes.

Oh.

“Let’s get out of here,” he growls, and grabs on to her hand. She squeaks, for just a moment, and in the second before the world begins to spin like it never should and she feels like she’s being sucked through a straw, she sees the man with the shark eyes, skin blistered and burnt, though likely not beyond repair.

She feels the young man’s surprise, before it happens, and maybe, just maybe, a hint of pride, before they’re so far away that Shark Eyes won’t be able to touch her.

-

Ari’s snarl, though human at first listening, bounces off the walls and reverberates through the room. Fizz watches from above, eyes flickering towards the snooty little blonde boy who apparently has seen it fit to make the girl’s life as miserable as he can make it.

Draco Malfoy.

The name makes her claws and teeth itch for something to tear into, but she stays her worst impulses- there are rules, after all, and no matter how much of an ass he is, Draco Malfoy is still a child.

There are no rules about scaring the kid, though. Fizah Gehdi rustles her feathers menacingly like a rattlesnake’s rattle, and growls deeply, to the point where the glass of the trophy cases begins to shake. The Malfoy boy jumps about a foot in the air, looking for the source of the noise. Fizz slides her eyes open, nictitating membrane’s translucence mixed with the viscerality of its swiping sound adding to the discomfort that the kid will feel upon seeing it.

It works. Malfoy takes one look at slit pupils and deep brown eyes attached to nothing, and runs the other way immediately. Ari cranes her head backwards, and gives Fizz a toothy smile. The self-appointed bodyguard laughs, but does not turn visible, instead making a beeline for the nearest window.

“Fizz!” Ari calls. Fizz is glad it’s the weekend and that Ari won’t be missing anything by jumping out the window with her, wide dark wings making a wind all their own while they catch the natural thermals below them.

“Yeah, fledgeling?” she purrs, digging her claws into the stone of the castle walls. Ari is about to say something, probably something about beating the Malfoy boy in Quidditch next week, but Fizz isn’t paying attention.

Instead, she’s leaping off of the building and building as much speed up as she can. Something is very, very wrong, and even if she doesn’t quite know what it is, she knows that it is something, that someone needs her protection right now far more than Ari does.

“Hey, kid! Watch it!” a voice barks. It’s a familiar one- she remembers the eldest Tavi, a purple-eyed beast with a history of excellence and a history of depression as well. Fizz doesn’t know the woman with him, though- a dark-skinned woman in the middle of her life, probably, who looks to be clinging as best she can to a bottle of hairspray, though she doesn’t quite know why.

Ari slams into her back like a pound of stones, and Fizz nearly keels over right them and there. Tavi catches her and laughs, and Fizz remembers just what kind of a legend the man right in front of her is.

After all, it’s not just anyone who gets released after a few hundred years of service to go do whatever he does here.

“You okay?” he asks. She nods, ears pinned to the back of her head.

“I’d suggest going back to the castle, I’ve got this covered, kid. You have a job to do, don’t you?” he purrs. She straightens and nods, pushing Ari back towards Hogwarts with a wing. She hears the woman with Tavi ask him something, but doesn’t pay much attention to it. He’s right- she has a job to do.

-

Amanda Fawley gets the call at around four in the morning. She has her book with moving photographs of every suspected Death Eater that she can remember ready for the young woman- Mary Cooper, she believes her name is, though the woman is nothing like what she’d expected- short and unobtrusive, yes, but with a fire lit in her midnight eyes, and hairspray clutched tightly in one hand. She identifies one immediately.

_ ‘Damascus Avery, I shouldn’t be surprised,’ _ she thinks to herself,  _ ‘He was never the smartest of the bunch, and I never bought his Imperius argument anyways.’ _

She also identifies Corban Yaxley, but giggles that he might look quite different the next time they see him. Amanda would be curious about  _ that _ , but the violet-eyed man with her smiles and flicks a lighter open, pointing to the hairspray.

Now, she’s just curious as to why everyone else seems to know exactly what that means and why she very much doesn’t.

Mary Cooper appears to be in shock, so one of the werewolves leads her over to somewhere warm and offers her a blanket and a mug of tea. Amanda Fawley sits on one of the picnic tables under the pine trees, cloak folded around her to block out even the faintest of chills, and looks over what opportunities they have for Black’s defense at the moment.

Most of it, as she’s aware, is digging and digging and digging until they find Pettigrew, and chipping away at him until he shatters like glass hit with a sledgehammer.

After all, there’s not really anyone who’s willing to testify, and the only one they can wiggle it out of would be Pettigrew.

“You know, when I was thinking of what I would be doing this spring, this didn't come anywhere close to mind,” Akiva hums from where he’s speaking with the young man named Mordechai Tavi. They seem friendly with each other, though Tavi is clearly the more nervous and reserved of the pair (and she would act the same, in his shoes- Akiva is rather intimidating if he’s not in a good mood).

Black’s long-furred dog form whistles past in an instant.

“I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing a Grim,” she mutters under her breath. She hears Hadar growl a ‘no kidding’ and sees Pascal elbow her, a hissed ‘the dog, not the abyss-eyed people’ escaping her in a rush.

Amanda doesn't know what the young-but-not woman means by that, and something tells her that she doesn't want to know.

Mr. Black continues to entertain the wolf cubs, who have grown significantly since their arrival, she’s heard, but not so much since her own. The smallest of them appears to be the leader, a quick and intelligent cub who knows exactly who to bug for food.

“You know, they’re not going to stop if you keep giving them your lunch,” Miss Cooper offers as she slides down the picnic table towards Amanda. The graying blonde woman turns towards the woman with deep, dark curls, and blinks.

“I had dogs when I was little. They'd sit next to the children’s chairs at dinner time because they knew we were far more likely to give them treats,” she continues. Amanda sees a set of jaws close around a chicken bone, and has to agree.

“Ah, I've always been a little bit soft at heart, I'm afraid,” Amanda replies, and at that, Miss Cooper smiles.

-

Hotch raises an eyebrow when Mordechai limps in the next morning, and wonders if he’d been telling the truth- that he really was sick, after all. He's learned to expect the unexpected in dealing with T’karians, and there’s always a possibility that having so many in the same place resulted in one of them passing some bug or another to each other without anyone noticing. He’s dispelled of that notion when the normally purple eyed man slips a note under his hand.

As he reads, his eyebrows climb even higher. He’s never met Keziah Tavi, but he is an older sibling, and he knows the helpless anger of not being able to do something when they're hurt. Or, Hotch thinks as he notes the way that Mordechai is dragging his left leg, the helpless anger of being injured while trying to do something about it and being left out of commission for it.

It's taken a long time for him to slide into the workings properly, but now- with a light flickering on in his eyes and claws that have never hurt, only protected- Mordechai Tavi is theirs, theirs, theirs, and the newly awakened dragon (well, not so new anymore) curled in Hotch’s chest growls out its assent. After all, T’karians are some of the best choices to guard the lair, and among them, Hotch knows no one better.

They won't help officially speaking- won't lend valuable time and manpower into chasing down another personal issue for a teammate- but they will let him go when they can spare his nose and the lightning that flickers between his fingers, when they don't  _ need _ him to be there to offer an eye in the sky.

In short, they'll help by letting him help himself, and turning a blind eye when he needs to slip off to guard the one person in his life that he could argue is more precious than anyone else (because Hotch understands that, understands instinct screaming  _ mine _ and  _ protect _ to call oneself to action, understands the burning need to curl up around one’s younger siblings and  _ roar _ at anything that tries to get to them).

They need him on the job if he’s going to be there, but they don't always need him- that’s what the whole team thing is about, after all.

Hotch wonders when Mordechai will spill about what’s been troubling him outside of paper, then remembers that he’s likely to live past six thousand years old and might not say anything until long after the rest of them are dead.

Hotch wonders what his own lifespan is like, now, then shudders at the thought. He really doesn't want to know.

-

Ari is comforted, not for the first time, that her eyes are not invisible.

It's a disturbing thing, knowing of the existence of invisibility, knowing that at any moment, someone could be staring at you in your most private of moments.

_ ‘The terror of being known,’ _ she thinks to herself.

It's a comforting thing, that fact, that no matter how well she can turn transparent and how well she can slip through places undetected, she won't be able to spy on anyone with her eyes unless she uses her cloak.

Fizz, in the depths of one night, mentions that she agrees, that it's disturbing. Like her teeth and her claws, it's a reminder that she’s a carnivore, a predator, above everything else.

As she preens her feathers, she comes to a simple realization-

_ ‘I am tired,’ _ she thinks to herself. That much is obvious- it's one in the morning- but Ari is thinking more along the lines of generality. She’s exhausted, all the time, and for the first time in her short life, the prospect of approaching summer excites her.

_ ‘Maybe I'll be able to sleep in, for once.’ _

She will. Maybe. But there’s always nightmares and the creaking floorboard to wake someone up, if her aunt and uncle don't do the trick.

She drifts off that night with hope aflame in her belly and an itch to travel and learn, now that she’ll have the chance.

_ ‘Next year,’ _ she thinks, right before she’s dead to the world, ‘ _ Next year, I'll be ready.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so my essays haven't exactly started rolling in at the speed of sound, yet, so I was able to finish thirty-one. also i love mary cooper.


	31. ordeal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ari is about to get back out of school (not really, it's a few months) and I'm stuck here until December...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back! and realizing very quickly that my workload is going to increase

Amanda Fawley resists the urge to kick open the door to the courtroom dramatically as she makes her way in. It would settle something, she thinks. She claimed the prosecution role as quickly as it became available- she’s always had a strong distaste for Damascus Avery, and now that the man has been included in a plot to kill a member of one of the T’karian noble families and the key witness in his own murder trial, she’s thrown herself into her work.

Prosecution is a comfortable weight that rests around her shoulders, prosecution of a fellow member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight especially. She knows better than anyone what the risks are of her continuing to push the envelope, but she also knows that if she plays her cards right, there’s no way she can lose.

“You know they’re ridiculously corrupt, don’t you?” Atara rumbles, a softness in her eyes that Amanda’s never seen before.

“When will that ever stop me?” Amanda replies as easy as breathing, turning to face the Moondancer with a smirk. The Moondancer looks too uncomfortable for this to be about anything in her past- although maybe it’s different for people who actively participated in those sorts of things, since Aviv vanished before they even portkeyed into the UK.

She knows Mary Cooper is stressed, likely worrying away at the string on her sleeves.

Amanda takes a breath, before finally settling into her place in front of the Wizamengot. She’d bargained to get Damascus Avery into chains- she knows just how much that means for an easily influenced jury like the one before her. There’s a bit of morbid pride as she notes Corban Yaxley’s face is still burnt.

Evidence flows like water from a font, spilling out onto the marble floors before them. As she speaks, she watches Avery’s face pinch. Weeks of discovery, for these precious few days (at the most- she knows this isn’t like a Muggle courtroom, knows that trials go by like the crack of a whip, knows that she only has a little time to convince them).

Avery’s defense is decent, but he isn’t  _ her. _ She knows, because Damascus Avery called her first, whining and crying like some little baby, and had begun to cry harder when she’d growled, far too pleased, that she was already on the case- as the prosecutor.

She can practically taste the defense’s argument melting away in her mouth, and that’s before she brings out her witnesses.

Mary Cooper is key, but she’s saving her- if she can win this without risking the poor girl’s life again, she will.

“I’d like to call Mary Cooper to the stand,” she calls, finally, after hours and hours and hours. It doesn’t have to be nearly this long, but she wants to  _ bury _ him, wants to make it so painfully obvious that Avery is guilty that there’s no possible way a single person on the jury can pull an argument in his favor.

“Is the man who attacked you in this room?” she asks. Mary Cooper nods, steel in her dark eyes. She asks her to point, and Mary Cooper does, finger fixed between Avery’s eyes as if to shoot and kill him.

Amanda is walking back to her place when the defense finally worms something half-decent out of himself.

“Miss Cooper, is it true you are a Muggle?” the man asks. Amanda freezes, and turns around so quickly that she might have whiplash.

“While that is not relevant to this, yes, I am,” she purrs. There’s an ‘I’ve got you know’ look about her face, one Amanda knows from looking in the mirror every morning, and she wonders what exactly Miss Cooper’s job is.

“I do believe it is up to us barristers to decide whether or not that’s relevant,” the defense says snootily. Miss Cooper laughs.

“It’s up to the judge presiding, actually,” she replies, folding her hands into her lap, “And I don’t believe it’s relevant because whether or not I have magic changes nothing of what I saw.”

Amanda knows that the question is meant to dig at Cooper’s credibility, and she has to give the defense some credit, it does work just a little bit. But Mary Cooper’s eyes are like a hawk’s, dangerous and ready, and she’s come prepared.

The defense says nothing else.

Avery comes up to the stand last.

She watches at the assembled lords and ladies gasp with every “yes” the man utters. It had been someone’s idea to dose the man with Veritaserum, but she doesn’t quite know who (something of her suspects the violet-eyed young woman who’s been following who she assumes is the woman’s older brother, a lovely young man who is far more cold and calculating than he seems at the surface).

Finally, Amanda Fawley can ask the questions that have been digging at her for months.

“Why were you on the Hogwarts grounds this September?”

“To retrieve Peter Pettigrew, and to obliviate anyone who I could about the incident,” he says, and another wave of shock rolls throughout the courtroom.

“Was Peter Pettigrew alive at that time?” she digs further.

“Yes.”

“Was Peter Pettigrew a Death Eater at that time?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes, he is alive,” the man replies, eyes still glazed.

“Is he still a Death Eater?”

“Yes.”

There’s no fun in this, hearing the answers she expects in a monotone voice with no emotion, like the soul has vacated the body already. Tricking them into revealing it themselves causes much more of a shock, and is far more natural. She’s not even sure that trial under Veritaserum would be legal in most countries, but it is legal in the United Kingdom, and Avery is not strong enough of will to resist it (Amanda, for example, feels like she might be able to worm her way around things just enough so that she wouldn’t incriminate herself, and knows that most barristers are the same way). Neither, it seems, is he strong enough of will to make his answers interesting.

Most people, under Veritaserum, will answer truthfully, unless they’ve found some way to trick their way around the issue in the first place. The most average and below in their ability to thread words through the proverbial needle will answer flatly, while the more eloquent will go on interesting spins, but will still tell the truth. The latter, of course, is how a veritaserum trial is scrapped- answering anything  _ but _ the question.

_ ‘Too easy’ _ screams something in the back of Amanda’s mind, and she’s inclined to agree.

-

Morgan stares at the disembodied pair of green eyes in front of him, sighs, and asks the question that’s on his mind anyways.

“So which one are you?”

“Which what?” a voice asks (more disciplined, if he’s to be honest, than he’d expected- he’s met several members of the family, by now, he knows the standard drill, and composure and calm are not it), and there’s a faint, almost inaudible thump as the green-eyed invisible man slides to the floor gracefully.

“Demeru,” he says flatly. That gets a reaction. Morgan finds himself with a crystallized tail at his throat, and raises his hands unobtrusively while the formerly invisible man sniffs at him.   
“Oh. You’re one of Tavi’s,” he says dismissively, and the sound of that makes- well, it makes Morgan  _ mad. _ Both at the snub to the man that he’s growing to see as a good friend, and the idea that he’s  _ anyone’s _ in particular (and, on top of that, that he’s not worthy of anyone’s notice without having another person buoy him up) irritate him to no end.

“Now, I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but we on Earth don’t take too kindly to people  _ breaking into our homes _ without even  _ knowing who we are _ ,” he growls. The Demeru man blinks, rearranges himself, and Morgan curses internally at the way that T’karian feet are structured, because the haughty asshat has at least a few inches on him.

“No need to get into a snit about it,” he grumbled back. There’s a strange hint of petulance in the voice. It’s especially odd considering the faintest hints of silver beginning to thread their way through his hair (more likely from stress than from age- he doubts the average T’karian starts to go gray at least until they’re a few thousand years old) and the worn, but rigid clothing- likely ex-military (probably where he met Mordechai), currently- Morgan would wager from the way he’s being talked down to here, the man’s likely a public school teacher. Why a freakishly long-lived shape shifter would think teaching a gaggle of human children anything at all is a mystery to him, but he’ll ignore it at the moment.

“You broke into my home.”

Morgan won’t even give this one the benefit of the doubt, hoping remaining on the territorial angle will get the guy to back off. It seems to start working, the man’s shoulders relaxing, and an air of softness about him. He extends a hand, which Morgan hesitantly shakes.

“Mattai Demeru,” he replies, and that  _ clicks _ something in Morgan’s head, but he can’t quite remember what.

“Derek Morgan. Why are you here?”

“Investigating,” the T’karian replies smoothly, moving a painting back into place with a lavishly colored tail. Morgan wonders if they grow more vivid with age- his deep blue and green feathers are certainly the most lustrous Morgan’s seen- but that doesn’t make up for the obvious.

“Why didn’t you just ask Lucky?” Morgan shoots back.

“Oh, I did,” Mattai hums, “But I know that sometimes you can’t trust people’s reports, and I’m under the impression that he might be more invested in protecting Agent Hotchner’s son than he is protecting the fledgeling.”   
“Jack’s cute, it’s valid,” spills out of Morgan’s mouth before he can catch himself. Mattai’s eyes widen, and he cackles- really,  _ cackles _ .

“It is, I suppose. But I figured he’d have a bias to show you all in a more positive light than what you yourselves have in your lives.”

Morgan’s still incensed at the blatant privacy violation, but he feels less like blowing a hole in the man’s head, now.

“Get out of my house,” he finally grinds out, and the T’karian obliges.

_ ‘Weird,’ _ Morgan thinks to himself, and shuts the window. He’ll have to invest in some better locks, if some aristocrat with delusions of grandeur and some military training can break into his house. It’s a wake up call, at the least- the guy wouldn’t exactly have stolen anything, at least nothing that Morgan would know about, and from what Mordechai had mentioned barely in passing of the guy he was at least somewhat decent, if a bit closed off with everyone but his mother.

-

“You know, you didn’t have to be an asshole about it,” Arik hums, watching Mattai complain about the irritating human that had stopped him.

“Oh, what was I supposed to do? ‘No, sir, I’m just searching a federal agent’s house because I don’t trust my former underling’s ability to report without bias, and I’m worried for my cousin’ and expect him  _ not  _ to explode my head? He was probably expecting me to be an asshole, anyways,” the adult T’karian grumbles, tail lashing.

“If he’d met Akiva before? No. That guy’s manners are so perfect it’s sad,” the now twelve-year-old barks, throwing his wings over the back of the couch. Mattai barks out a laugh, wide blue wings crashing into the lamp for the fifth time in the week. Their mother shoots a look at Arik’s father, who whispers something and watches as the lamp flies back into itself.

Arik’s half-brother has the decency to look sheepish this time, at least. Arik’s not sure, however, how much of it is the mortification of acting the way he had earlier, or the actual breaking of the lamp (actually, he’s fairly certain that it’s not the lamp, but one can never be completely sure). He knows that the Demeru family image as slightly eccentric (or, in the case of some, very eccentric) and powerful, but otherwise friendly and approachable, and knows that’s a deliberate choice on their predecessor’s parts, and anything that violates that image out of the bounds of standard T’karian behavior is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Their mother is looking over the both of them cautiously, now, like she wants to know exactly how badly Mattai fucked up.

“If he’s met Akiva and a few other members of the family- often enough to ask ‘which one’ instead of ‘who are you’- we should be fine, if he talks about it it’s probably going to be specifics rather than a general blight upon the family name,” their mother says eventually, but even that is hesitant.

“You know, you could just apologize. I’ve heard that FBI agents get the same crappy coffee that cops get, I bet he would appreciate some of the good stuff,” Arik offers. That gets a laugh out of both his father and brother, while his mother just looks vaguely amused. If any member of the family is severe and a little cold, it’s certainly his mother- which is a bit funny, considering the fire she can bring to the surface- though even this, he understands, a little.

“Yeah, I could, kid,” Mattai chirps, digging his suit out from underneath a pile of blankets. Arik huffs, and turns back to his homework. Figures that the second the man hits a snag, he’ll go out and punch a bunch of bad guys to feel a little better about himself.

“Be safe!” their mother calls, while Mattai promises. There’s been a more concerned look to her eyes, lately, like she knows something bad is going to happen, and soon, but can’t find the words to explain why she doesn’t want him going out  _ right now. _

Instead, she follows him through the window, body sliding out of visibility like she was born for it.

Arik doesn’t know why something feels so wrong about it, but it  _ does. _

-

Ari lifts her nose into the wind, early one April morning, and smells trouble.

Well, not literally. What she smells, she thinks, is a mix of blood and werewolf fur, though fortunately she’s never had the misfortune of smelling the two of those things together, even when dealing with Lupin (who, she thinks, really just needs to attach himself to a half-decent Moondancer so he can stop having to take drugs to avoid self-harming, though she’s fully aware that to the average werewolf, that task can seem herculean at times) after the full moon nights.

No, this wolf smells like rage and blood and treachery, and-

And like the cubs she’d grabbed- the ones who’d been hungry and alone in the forest, all by themselves. She wonders what idiot who would be stupid enough to make babies with the wolf that’s in the forest. She hopes that maybe, just maybe, it’s an aunt or uncle situation, and maybe the wolf in the forest is the twin sibling of a parent of the three cubs that Ari and Fizz had grabbed several months back. Ari knows, however, in her heart of hearts, that this isn’t the case, and someone had been fool enough to be lured in by the bloody wolf in the trees.

“You alright?” Hermione mumbles. She hasn’t realized she’s been growling deep enough to make the stones in the tower begin to shake ever-so faintly and loud enough to wake up the girls in her room (besides Fizz, who’d woken Ari herself up when she’d gone off to investigate the castle on her own again). Lavender looks concerned as well, but Parvati has gone back to sleep after passing out, long, shining dark hair only half-braided, with her head in Lavender’s lap.

“Oh. Sorry,” she says sheepishly, raising her wings in what approximates the closest thing she can get to a mortified shrug without wrenching her claws out of the wooden windowsill (and, really, the poor windowsill- it likely won’t recover unless someone just installs a completely new sill- magic can only stretch so far).

“It’s alright. I’ll forgive you if you let me get your fingers in your hair- it’s so much prettier than last year’s split ends filled atrocity,” Lavender hums, and pats the bed next to where Parvati is sleeping. Normally, Ari won’t let anyone touch her hair- a side affect, she thinks, of her Aunt Petunia raking the most awful combs through it and attempting to shave it off ever since she was little (and really, anything but a straightening iron- something in Ari had told her to not to let that thing anywhere near her), but Lavender has curly hair too, and likely knows what it’ll take to make it look nice without being overly painful. She folds a wing around the Banshee’s shoulders and the rest of Parvati’s body, and lets Lavender do her work.

It’s nice, she thinks. Lavender seems to agree, and peppers Ari about what kind of conditioners and shampoos she’s been using. To be entirely honest, she’d just been asking Cassius to send whatever he uses- it only has the faintest scent to it, something Lavender probably can’t even smell, and it doesn’t give her a headache like the awful bargain bin conditioners Aunt Petunia had made her use.

“And does Cassius have curly hair like yours?” Lavender asks. Ari nods.

“Well, that’s it, then. You managed to snag some decent shampoo and conditioner that won’t cause breakage, and your hair already grows fast- the healthier stuff has grown back several inches. Go to get it cut properly sometime- something you really like, so you won’t feel the need to revert it- to get rid of the unhealthy hair at the bottom, and you should be fine- it’s what I do when I’ve felt stressed. Magical hair grows fast when it’s cut, but stressed hair grows in weak no matter who you are.”

“How are you so knowledgeable about hair?” Ari asks once she’s done with whatever she’d done to her hair. Lavender laughs.

“Anyone else I’d ever met my age knew nothing about good curly hair care. They had either a bit of bushiness on wavy hair or hair straighter than Parvati’s. Necessity and access to my mother, who knew it for the same reasons.”

Ari nods, slightly intimidated. She wonders if Lavender ever hides weapons in her hair. She bets the other girl could hide a knife in hair shorter than the blade’s length.

She doesn’t know she’s said it out loud until Lavender is laughing wildly at her, and Parvati and Fay are grumbling, finally awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do NOT ever expect a consistent update schedule from me but More Importantly school's started again and I am So Tired


End file.
